The Traumas of Publishing

A friend of mine recently asked me on Facebook how I felt after I shared that Unwrapping: A Novel About Generational Trauma is finally available for purchase.

That’s a great question and one I’ve been thinking about a lot the past few weeks, in particular as minor delays kept pushing back the launch date.

The answer in my head feels appropriate for the book. In a way, publication of Unwrapping has been a traumatic experience. Not generational trauma of the sort in my book, mind you. And nothing like the kind of traumas that bring counseling clients to me. But trauma, nonetheless.

I began writing the book in August 2021 just after the end of a residency program in spirituality and trauma with my then employer, CareNet Counseling. The two years of residency, preceded by three years of school to get my master’s in clinical mental health counseling, had filled my head with ideas. But I found myself struggling—in particular in the case of trauma treatment—to conceptualize what the ideas could look like in practice.

I decided to start writing a book in which I could have a fictional client with multiple types of traumas work with a therapist in session. Nine months later, I’d finished the first draft of Unwrapping. At the time, I had no sense that this would be a book worth publishing. My wife, Terrie, read it and thought it was compelling.

I then asked Catherine Clifton Hardman, my former colleague at the National Board for Certified Counselors, who has a fine arts master’s degree in fiction, to edit the book, and I used her insights to flush out some of the characters, scenes and organization.

After that, I shared the book with two other people who were important in my decision to try to get the book published. Tom Peterson, a marketing guru I knew from my time working in communications for Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, loved the book. Russell Siler Jones, director of CareNet’s residency program, vetted Unwrapping for its trauma sequences and also said it was a good read.

Initially, I tried to go the traditional route of obtaining a literary agent who would work to find a publisher. But after a couple of dozen rejections (“Just not right for us.” “Keep trying others.” “Doesn’t feel like a good fit.”), I began to pursue independent publishers.

I had a connection that led me to the Grateful Steps Foundation, a small indie publisher based in Asheville created 20 years earlier by Micki Cabaniss. She’s a retired physician with an amazing story herself, having been a victim of childhood chronic sexual abuse within an extreme fundamentalist religious home.

Micki created her publishing house with the intent of giving voice to first-time authors, people who might not ordinarily have a chance to get a book published (such as those who’d been in jail), and authors whose books covered sensitive topics. Micki read my email pitch and didn’t even ask for an excerpt. She wanted to publish Unwrapping straight off the bat.

We began the editing process in March 2023, and it went smoothly to the point that I initially believed the book would be published by the holiday season that year. I created this website and began blogging in the summer of 2023 with the idea of creating an audience and some momentum for the book.

But a couple of things happened along the way.

Micki, 82 at the time, was diagnosed with cancer. And though she continued to work with me and her many other authors, the work slowed noticably. Just as momentum returned and we appeared to be pointing toward potential publication last fall, Hurricane Helene hit the Asheville region and Micki was grounded for weeks.

At the same time, Micki decided based on her health and family considerations to retire at the end of 2024. She’d been struggling to manage the printing companies that work with independent publishers such as Grateful Steps. But Micki did find a person to help bring home my book and several others.

Rachel Bell, co-founder of Overcup Press, an independent publisher based in Portland, Oregon, worked with me to navigate Unwrapping through the print-on-demand publication process, which will make the book available on the major websites, including bookshop.org, barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com.

But as every small delay this year pushed publication pushed back from February to March to April, it felt like the stab of little trauma daggers. Somewhere in these last three months, I became numb to the latest slight delay. Part of me believed that “of course the book will be published” and part of me didn’t want to face the possibility that at this late stage something might go wrong and I’d be back to square one.

To anyone who asked when my book was coming out, I would say with a smile, “soon, I hope.” Inside, I was dying.

On April 5, Terrie and I went to downtown Winston-Salem amid another type of ongoing trauma.

There, we joined thousands in a local version of the nationwide “Hands Off” protest. We stayed for 90 minutes, and though we know that, individually, we cannot prevent authoritarianism, the collective nature of opposition in big numbers—and the fear that can instill in state and federal legislators (especially in swing states like North Carolina) is significant.

The rally gave Terrie, me and so many people in attendance something they’d been missing since Jan. 21—hope.

Three days later, hope on my book was delivered when Rachel provided a link to order Unwrapping. I could finally go public.

Have I mentioned that hope is an especially powerful tool against trauma?