I’m pleased to officially report that Labor Pains and Birth Stories, due out in January 2009, will be followed in the next year by an anthology of essays (and possibly poems) exploring the experiences of birth parents. We are looking for essays (and poems) written by birth mothers and birth fathers who have given up their children for adoption, of birth parents who have met their children later in life, birth parents who have navigated the difficult waters of open adoptions, adoptive parents who have struggled through or been blessed with a relationship with a birth parent or who have watched their children reach out or struggle with their birth parents, and people who have been adopted and later developed a relationship or did not develop a relationship with a birth parent. The focus, however, is on birth parents (not adoption, which we may do for a later anthology.) We hope this will be a healing book, and perhaps a resource as well.

Though lots has been written about adoption, there is a real lack of resources for birth parents. I’m very excited to participate in this project, which will be edited by mother-daughter team Ann Angel and Amanda Angel. They have their own great story to tell, which they may choose to do at a later time on this blog. Essays can be short or long. We are a literary press and looking for essays written to the highest standards. Please submit your best work.

If you want to submit an essay or poem to this upcoming anthology, please contact Amanda and Ann at the following email: alangel78 at gmail.com. You can also contact us here at Catalyst Book Press at info at catalystbookpress.com.

p.s. this is a sensitive topic; for those who need it, we will welcome essays and poems written under pseudonyms…