Thursday, August 23, 2018

A BIG Announcement: See Cailey...Write?

Wow, wow, wow I have some exciting news to share and you all have no idea how long I've been waiting and how badly I've wanted to break the news!

I keep hinting about it on Instagram, posting pictures of fish drawings, and papers covered in editing notes, with captions vaguely referring to some project I'm working on... But I think I've done a good job of keeping it mostly on the down-low.

Do you know how hard it is to be excited about something for almost a whole year and not talk about it?

I did tell a few friends, and they got more than their share of all-caps hype texts along the way... Thanks for the encouragement and the all-caps responses!

Okay, have I built this up enough?

Have I given you a proper taste of what I've felt all year? Yes?

Am I just being mean now? Yeah?

Okay, okay. Drum roll please...

I'm publishing a poetry chapbook!

Stars & Seas will be released in the beginning of November! 

More information, such as where to purchase, will be coming soon as I finalize details.

Over the past year I've written, edited, and illustrated over 40 pages of poetry. Wrestled with Microsoft Word, googled countless questions about formatting and self-publishing, and read books on space travel and deep-sea exploration...

Illustration for "Song of the Ginkgo Tree," page 33
  • Did you know space smells like burning metal? At least, according to NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent almost an entire year living in the International Space Station. He shared his experience in Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery, published last year. 
  • Did you know the deepest known point in the ocean is Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench? It's about 36,000 feet deep!
  • Did you know that just this year, PhD candidate David Nadlinger of the University of Oxford won an award for his photograph of an atom? It looks like a tiny blue dot, not unlike the famous Pale Blue Dot in space, also known as our own humble Earth, photographed by Voyager 1 in 1990. 
  • Did you know a group of jellyfish is called a bloom?

These are a few of the things I've learned along the way, and they've all slipped into my poems in one way or another. This book compares space and the ocean, using imagery from those two realms to connect with and illustrate my experiences with anxiety and depression.

"Self Portrait," 2017. The Stars & Seas cover image!
Stars & Seas is about my first panic attack, which I experienced a couple years ago.

It's about my ongoing struggle to figure out how much of who I am is actually me, and how much is the anxiety which I've only recently realized I've probably had my whole life.

It's about the passing of my grandpa in April 2017.

It's about trying to be an artist when the art just isn't coming to me.

It's about coming to terms with faith and fear. 

Creating Stars & Seas has been an extremely therapeutic journey, and finally publishing and sharing it with all of you is a big, exciting, and scary final step. It's been a labor of both love and catharsis.

I hope you enjoy this book, either to take a peek into the life of the mental health-challenged, to hopefully find something you can relate to and find comfort in, or just to read some half-decent poetry about space-jellyfish. 

I love you all and I can't wait to share this with you! Like I said, I'll soon have more information regarding cost, where you can purchase, and other ways to support me...

-Cailey

1 comment:

  1. Yay!!! I can't wait!!! But I will!!!
    Blessings.... Pam Eubanks

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