No One Talks About This Stuff
"[F]rank, humorous essays about facing infertility, pregnancy loss, and childlessness....With entries that are somber, angry, and wry...No One Talks About This Stuff addresses the feelings of shame and sadness that accompany atypical experiences with parenthood." -- Rebecca Foster, Foreword
"Shining a warm light on the stories that should never have sat in the shadows. Each generously shared experience powerfully validates and chips away at shame, as it speaks the truth of hoping, waiting, losing, loving and questioning. This book welcomes knowing nods, valuable insight, and hope to those who are tired of sitting behind the taboo. Life affirming, searingly honest and deeply moving." -- Anna Mathur, bestselling author of Know Your Worth
"Kat's raw, honest and open book - with her words and those of her contributors - will allow you to find the peace, the rage, the acceptance, the anger, the love, the hatred, the joy and the connection that we all need to be allowed to feel when life deals us an unexpected and unfair hand. Kat could not have described NOTATS more perfectly by saying it is a support group in a book; it is that, and so much more." -- Pippa Vosper, author of Beyond Grief
"Kat Brown's constellation of stories explores the persistently misunderstood experience of reproductive loss. The voices of the contributors are necessarily varied, but they are unified by fascinating and moving insights." -- Julia Bueno, author of The Brink of Being
On December 15 2021, I launched a campaign with the crowdfunding publishers Unbound for an anthology collecting people’s lived experiences of infertility, baby loss, and not having children. We gave it a working title of No One Talks About This Stuff, because of our experience that, until you’ve gone through it, you might think that you’re the only one in your circle, family, or community who has. I offered dog walks with me and Sybil, social media consultations, interviews, picnics, and book clubs among the pledge rewards!
On April 13th 2022, the book was 100% funded!
On December 15 2022, I handed in the finished manuscript.
The book collates 22 moving, honest, surprising, and funny essays from women, men, and non-binary people about their experiences of infertility. Writers include parents, childless women, childfree women, and people who haven’t decided yet. The aim is to provide a support group in a book that you can buy from mainstream shops so that people don’t feel so alone. They are absolutely brilliant essays.
I’m an affiliate of bookshop.org – if you buy through my shop there I get 10%, and another 10% goes into a pot which is then distributed among independent bookshops.
No One Talks About This Stuff is a support group for almost-parents. A place to share their journeys of loss and limbo, to confront social pressure and to find courage in the darkness of tragedies which happen every day yet are brushed under the carpet.
So, we hear from a stepmother who wrestles with infertility. A husband and wife each tell their experience of losing their baby. A lesbian comes of age at a time when gay people rarely become parents. A father finds loss to be his unlikely superpower. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder impacts a person’s choices about having a family. A black woman unpacks ancestral shame while finding renewed purpose. And each person shares how they lived through it.
This captivatingly beautiful, profound and honest anthology opens a much-needed conversation about society, family and honouring the missing children we will never forget.