BooksChatter: ☀☄ I Am More Than My Hair

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for I Am More Than My Hair: My Outward Appearance Does Not Define Me, a Women's Issues and Photography book by Alyscia Cunningham (1 July 2018, AC Media, 100 pages).

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis, trailer and the excerpt below.

Support the film fund raiser for I Am More Than My Hair documentary film.

Author Alyscia Cunningham will be awarding a limited edition 2019 calendar for "I Am More Than My Hair" to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

|| Synopsis || Trailer || Teaser: Excerpt || About the Author || Giveaway & Tour Stops ||

Synopsis

I Am More Than My Hair

Film Fundraiser!

From the time we are young, girls are pressured into a set belief of beauty standards. Hair is certainly high on the list and is often labeled as our "crown and glory." Where does this notion fit for a girl with alopecia (the partial or complete absence of hair from areas of the body where it normally grows; baldness)? This new coffee table book should bring light to the issue.

I Am More Than My Hair: My Outward Appearance Does Not Define Me, is a two-part project, documentary film and coffee table book. The newly published book features 138 portraits of 46 women and the stories of their experience with hair loss, as well as women who cut their hair in solidarity of a loved one.

Support the film

If you look towards the media to define what's beautiful, baldness is not a look that is considered attractive. 'I Am More Than My Hair' is a documentary film that redefines the beauty of female baldness by experiencing the stories of girls and women who’ve lost their hair due to medical conditions or by choice to support a loved one.

Support Alyscia Cunningham's effort to produce her first documentary film and raise awareness about female hair loss.

Support the fundraiser for I Am More Than My Hair documentary film, by making a tax-deductible donation. We ask for your support in helping to raise $106,000 for the post-production and marketing cost of Cunningham's project.

Find out more on Alyscia's website.

Teaser: Excerpt

Sophia, 8
Sophia was born in Fairfax, Virginia. She loves acting, and Language Arts is her favorite subject. She looks forward to becoming an Alopecia model.

Sophia

I am beautiful no matter what

As her mother, I have always seen Sophia as truly beautiful—inside and out. She has always had a smile that you could see to her soul, and her personality and mannerism matched that of her outside. It shook my world when she lost her hair, like a horrific act of nature that leaves you on your knees, scared and feeling as if all is lost. But the beauty is that all is not lost, and sometimes, one has to shed the unimportant to see what a true blessing you have been given.
Her hair loss made me brave, stronger, more passionate, and more aware of the deep and humbling beauty that my sweet Sophia has running through every vein in her being. The hair, being a "dead follicle" anyway, couldn't take that energy pouring out of her and fell out. Now her being has direct access to the sun and heavens where she is truly an unstoppable force of happiness, love, and vibrant energy. Sophia's journey with alopecia has kept us on our toes and made us much more resilient to what life can throw at you and how to make lemonade out of lemons. It has also taught us to never take things for granted; one day you have something, and the next day, it could be gone. Enjoy it while you have it, but also know that you can be strong and just as okay without it.
In Sophia's words: "I am not my hair because I am beautiful no matter what, and it brings out the smile on my face even more. I'm just simply adorable. Having alopecia hasn't changed me one bit. I'm just as fun and silly as when I had hair. I have met a lot of older girls that have had alopecia, and they are beautiful inside and out and a couple of them are actually models. I think that is so cool, and I hope that one day, I too can be an alopecia model and show the whole world that having alopecia is no big deal and can also be very beautiful."

My Outward Appearance Does Not Define Me

I Am More Than My Hair
Available NOW!

About the Author

Alyscia Cunningham is an entrepreneur, author, filmmaker and photographer who has contributed to the Smithsonian, National Geographic, Discovery Channel and AOL. In September 2013 Alyscia self-published Feminine Transitions, a photography book encompassed with portraits of raw feminine beauty. Her recently published photography book and upcoming documentary film, I Am More Than My Hair, features 138 portraits of 46 females and the stories of their experience with hair loss as well as females who cut their hair in solidarity of a loved one. Alyscia creates these, and future projects, with the consideration of art for social-change.

Alyscia specializes in promoting our natural beauty because she believes the media does a good job of focusing on our insecurities by bombarding us with ads proclaiming that their appearance without enhancements is inadequate or faulty. Her portraits are unaltered by Photoshop and reveal women as they are naturally, without the façade they put on for others.

Her work has been featured on Fox5 News, The Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, APlus, and Proud2BMe. To learn more about Alyscia and her work, visit Alyscia.com.

Alyscia also invites you to view her video introductions to Feminine Transitions, and I Am More Than My Hair.

Follow Alyscia Cunningham:

Giveaway and Tour Stops

Enter to win a limited edition 2019 calendar for "I Am More Than My Hair" (US only) – a Rafflecopter giveaway
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