About the Book

Book artist and editor team Marguerite and Camden Richards are publishing an illustrated book of mini creative essays about birth traditions from around the world. The book seeks to honor the diversity of global birth traditions. In modern times, as pregnancy and birth experiences become more medicalized and homogenous, heritage traditions seem to be disappearing, especially those that have been passed through the generations through oral histories. With this book we hope to celebrate the traditions and experiences that new and expecting mothers have maintained from their heritage cultures. While we know it's impossible to capture the breadth and wealth of all world heritage traditions in one single book, our goal is to publish nine (9) mini essays to demonstrate the fabric and texture of global and native cultural heritage woven into the birth practice. We hope to cover as much of the world as possible: Africa and the Magreb, Oceania, Middle East, Europe and the Levant, the Americas, East Asia, South Asia.

Style & Content

First-person, non-fiction, intimate, visceral experience of pregnancy, birth or newborn months, which ideally include one or several elements integral to the cultural heritage of the writer.

To Apply:

1. Please submit your 100-500 word maximum mini creative essay here by October 15, 2021.

2. Please include the name or description of your heritage culture, which you are writing about.

3. Please specify your genealogical connection to that culture (e.g. born in Japan or mother/father was born and raised in Japan).

Ideal Contributor: There is no restriction on gender, religion, race, ethnicity or bi-racial nature of the writer. However, preference will be given to exceptional writing by those writers who prove strongest ties with their heritage culture as possible, and portray an intimate relationship to that culture in an authentic way through their writing. Writers selected are responsible for the authenticity of their own experience, which is why we call for non-fiction.

Book Format: This will be published as an artist’s book, which is a work of art in book form. The book will include custom illustrations and will be letterpress printed and hand-bound; specific design of the book will be driven by the nature of the selected essays. Examples of the artist’s previous work can be found at liminal-press.com.

Distribution: The book will be released at the Codex Foundation's International Book Fair. The Codex Foundation exists to preserve and promote the contemporary hand-made book as a work of art in the broadest possible context. The intention is for the book to become a part of the permanent holdings at museum collections, public and private university libraries, public library collections, and private book arts collectors. A list of where the artist’s previous work is held can be found at liminal-press.com/collections-exhibitions-awards

Writer compensation & copyright agreement: This book will be a work of art, and the first edition will comprise 30 copies, illustrated, hand-made and hand-printed by the artist. At the time of publication (date TBD) one (1) copy made by the artist will be given as compensation to each person whose writing was accepted for the book. Each writer will maintain the copyright of his or her individual work, and the editor/artist will maintain the copyright for the works within the book as a whole. Only the writer will have the right to re-publish his or her work elsewhere outside of the context of this book.

Proceeds to support BIPOC maternal health: The proceeds of 10 of the 30 total copies will go to an organization supporting the health and safety of BIPOC mothers during childbirth.

Copyright beyond the artist book: If the book is well received, there is a possibility of developing the title into a longer, trade format book, likely to include more writers and art, in which case the copyright agreement with the writer, artist and editor would be revisited in a new agreement.