Help us finish Stick, stay, grow
My grant application to finish colouring Stick, Stay, Grow (my graphic memoir about the conception, high-risk pregnancy, and life in the NICU of my twins) fell through. So now - in the homestretch - I need to reach out to you, my community at large, to see if you are willing to help me finish this book!
Marlee Spicer, my illustrator extraordinaire, has finished drawing the entire book in black and white. Out of the 290 pages, 30 pages plus the chapter title pages, are fully coloured. But that leaves 250 pages that need to be inked and coloured.
This book is not only entertaining and informative. It is a loud voice for parents everywhere going through serious challenges in their journeys to parenthood.
We are surrounded with images of perfect, simple pregnancies and births. When one embarks on starting a family, our expectation is that the experience will be idyllic. No one explains that countless pregnancies and births are far from the advertised images. And so, if something does go wrong, we are woefully emotionally and logistically unprepared.
Nothing can fully prepare you for the potential of long hospital stays, advocating for oneself and one’s babies in a high-stress medical environment, nor for how to survive life in the NICU (let alone the possibility of even ending up with a baby in the NICU). But with personal stories and shared experiences, with books that are not only accessible and entertaining, but also teach, advocate, and expose the unpolished realities of such stories, we can help give the power back to expecting mothers, normalize open discussion about ante and postpartum challenges, and reduce the shock and PTSD from such incidents.
Women’s voices need to be put to the forefront of obstetric care. I hope that “Stick, Stay, Grow” can become part of the canon of stories of mothers, children, and families who have braved the odds and advocated for themselves in a system rife with medical platitudes and protocol, where patient-centered care is not always the norm.
Thanks in advance for any donating/sharing/spreading the word you are able to do.
xoxox
Myriam
Catalogue Baby: A Memoir of (In)fertility
Myriam’s first graphic memoir, Catalogue Baby: A Memoir of (In)fertility, is an award-winning graphic novel about her fertility struggles, miscarriages, and her deep-seeded desire to bring a child into the world. At its heart, Catalogue Baby aims to break the silence and taboos surrounding the world of infertility and pregnancy loss.
Catalogue Baby is the winner of the Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature (memoir category), the gold medal for the IPPY (Independent Publisher’s) Book Award (graphic novel category), and the gold medal in the Foreword Indies Award (graphic novel category). It is also on the American Library Association’s (ALA) list of Must Read Graphic Novels 2021.
Stick, Stay, Grow
Stick, Stay, Grow is the follow-up to Catalogue Baby. It follows Myriam through the conception of her twins, her high-risk pregnancy, life in the NICU after the babies were born two months prematurely, and finally, life at home as a Single Mother by Choice to twin babies.
With gratitude to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of the book.