New book available now!

I am beyond excited to announce to you that my second book, to linger on hot coals: collected poetic works from grieving women writers, was released on January 24th and is now available for purchase!  It will be released as an eBook in the near future, and is currently available as a paperback on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.  Here are more details about the book, and I will paste the links in at the bottom of this email for those of you who may be interested in checking it out.  Thank you so much for your support of my work.

Poets explore the lasting effects of grief in new anthology released January 2014

“Most of the time, we consider grief ugly, and most of the time it is.  But, sometimes you find something that moves that kind of loss beyond horror to something clear and pristinely honest— beautiful… Stephanie Paige Cole and Catherine Bayly have collected a deeply beautiful gift of poetry in to linger on hot coals.”  -Melissa Miles McCarter, Editor of Joy, Interrupted

to linger on hot coals was born from the imaginations and lives of two mothers.  Artist-writer, Stephanie Paige Cole, and poet-teacher, Catherine Bayly, crafted their brain child in memory of their first daughters, Madeline and Sophie.  Both girls were stillborn at full term, and the experience of mothering their memories became paramount in the writing and daily lives of their mothers.  As the years passed, the need to mother them has changed, but the desire to keep them at the center of Cole and Bayly’s work has remained.

This book represents a multitude of women’s voices, at various stages of grief-mothering.  Within the pages you’ll find raw cerebral iterations of the infinite ripple effects of grief and the raw visceral howls of grief’s earliest days.  Cole and Bayly hope the book will take part in an ongoing complex conversation about motherhood and work—and that it will speak to the hearts and minds of those mothers who’ve lost.

to linger on hot coals features a powerful foreword by MISS founder, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, and poetry from Cole and Bayly along with Kara LC Jones, Angie Yingst, Sherokee Ilse, Laura Seftel, Carly Dudley, Tara Hart, Beth Morey, Amy McCarter, Hannah Logan Morris, Devany LeDrew and Anne Morris.

More information about this book can be found online at www.tolingeronhotcoals.com.

Order your copy today on Amazon or Barnes & Noble

And I hope you will all join us on Saturday, March 8 at 1pm for a free community gathering to celebrate the release of this sweet and sacred little book.  Details about Sweet Pea Project's to linger on hot coals poetic gathering can be found at www.sweetpeaproject.org/poetry.

Again, thank you for all your support as we work together to create a more compassionate community for the families left behind after the death of a beloved child.

Sweet Pea Project Presents to linger on hot coals poetic gathering

Sweet Pea Project is hosting a poetic gathering on March 8, 2014 at the beautiful Mulberry Art Studios in downtown Lancaster, PA, to celebrate the release of Stephanie Paige Cole & Catherine Bayly's new book, to linger on hot coals: collected poetic works from grieving women writers. The book features a foreword from Dr Joanne Cacciatore and poetry from Stephanie and Catherine along with Kara LC Jones, Angie Yingst, Sherokee Ilse, Laura Seftel, Carly Dudley, Tara Hart, Beth Morey, Amy McCarter, Hannah Logan Morris, Devany LeDrew and Anne Morris.  To learn more about this book, please visit www.tolingeronhotcoals.com.

Doors open at 1:00.  Guests will have time to mingle, enjoy some light food and wine, leaf through copies of to linger on hot coals and wander through the space to view the candles lining the gallery's windowsills and ledges, each one with the name of a deeply loved and missed child handwritten on it.

At 2:00, Dr Joanne Cacciatore- founder of the MISS Foundation and Center For Loss & Trauma- will open with a short presentation via video about her involvement in to linger on hot coals, and the importance of expressing the full spectrum of emotions that accompany the death of a child.  The poetry reading will immediately follow and will include pieces from each of the to linger on hot coals contributors.  Angie Yingst, Devany LeDrew, Catherine Bayly and Stephanie Paige Cole will read live in the gallery and, since they live much too far away to attend in person, Kara LC Jones, Sherokee Ilse, Laura Seftel, Carly Dudley, Tara Hart, Beth Morey, Amy McCarter, Hannah Logan Morris and Anne Morris will share their poems with us via video projected on the gallery wall.

Stephanie, Catherine, Angie and Devany will be available to chat and sign books after the poetry reading has concluded.  Books will be available for purchase, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting Sweet Pea Project.

Registration is not required for this free community event, but we want to make sure we have plenty of refreshments so please, if you plan to attend, let us know by clicking the link to sign up at www.sweetpeaproject.org/poetry.

There is still time to have a candle added in honor of your little one, please read the blog post that follows this one for details.

Thank you to our event sponsors
Sweet Pea Project
Mulberry Art Studios
Loving Memories Photography
Continental Inn
Food For Thought Catering

Lit with Love at poetic gathering

Have a candle lit for your child at Sweet Pea Project's to linger on hot coals poetic gathering this March.

As you may have heard, Sweet Pea Project founder Stephanie Paige Cole and poet/professor Catherine Bayly have teamed up to create a book of poetry entitled to linger on hot coals.  The collection contains pieces from some of the the most beautiful and powerful voices of our community, and we are so excited for its release in just a few weeks.  You can visit www.tolingeronhotcoals.com or the facebook page for details, reviews and updates. https://www.facebook.com/hotcoalspoetry?ref=hl  We'll be sharing more about it soon.

To celebrate this lovely little book, Sweet Pea Project will be hosting a poetic gathering and community reception at Mulberry Art Studios on March 8.  As we have done in the past (at Beauty in the Breakdown and Five) we plan to fill the gallery space with candles, each bearing the name of a beloved baby, so that the room is filled with their light, lit by our love for them.

For those of us who have suffered through the death of a baby, the glowing light of the candles will be a reminder of their short but precious lives and a tribute to our love for them.  And it will surely move those who have not experienced such a loss to walk into a room and see how our love still burns for our unseen children.

During the month of January, anyone who makes a donation in any amount to Sweet Pea Project will have a candle placed in the gallery in honor of their child.  This includes donations made for the Winter Book Drive.  Contributions may be sent by check to the address at the bottom of this post, or be made securely online with a credit card or paypal account at www.sweetpeaproject.org/donate/paypal.  Please be sure to include your child's name when you submit your donation.

Please feel free to contact me at  Stephanie@sweetpeaproject.org with any questions at all.  Thank you for your support of Sweet Pea Project, and for the honor of including your beautiful child in this exhibit.

Sweet Pea Project
PO Box 10351
Lancaster, PA 17605-0351

Sweet Pea Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.  All donations are tax deductible.