this program contains language some may find offensive. [applause] >> good evening. the author of bad feminist and untamed state, difficult women,

and marvel's world of waconta. a contributing opinion write for "the new york times" and has written for "time," mcweiny, the nation, and more. her fiction has been select for the best american short stories of 2012 and the bit mystery stovers 2014, among other anthologies. in her new book, "hunger" she talks.learning thank you feed your hunger and take caring of yourself. joining rocksian on stage, aminatou sow, and roxan gay.

>> thank you for joining us today. this book is amazing. >> yeah. >> you know, i mean, you're like con yay to me. only two or three pointers. knew i wouldn't be disappointed. >> guest: speaking of three-pointers, there's a basketball game tonight. sorry. >> host: i was so struck by so many things when i read the book. had to stop many times because it was very emotional, really raw, and i was just reminded of how just generous you are as a

person, somebody who is not afraid to say the thing that we are all thinking or should be thinking and helps us be a little more brave, and can you kind of talk to us about what was hard about writing this for you. >> guest: everything. you want me to elaborate? >> host: sure. >> guest: it was a difficult book to write. i sold this book in -- just before bad summer came out, and i was thinking about what i wanted my next nonfiction project to be, and i thought the book i want to write least is a book about fatness and then i realized it's the book i should write the most. my dad says do something no one is is doing to achieve perspective. people talk about fatness from the perspective of having figured out their bodies and have lost a lot of weight. you see a woman on the cover of her book standing in a leg her

formerly fat pants. i want to write that book. why don't i tell the story of my body today. without apology, and i'm just explanations. this is my fat body and this is what it's like to be in this world, in this body. >> host: i think one of the thing is realen video, too, that you did in the book, there's -- for as many new perspectives as we hear about bodies and abuse and beside rape culture, i still think there's a singular narrative of how you are supposed to react to when, like, hard things happen to you, and i think that you were really able to shift that conversation and change the conversation from -- you know, in saying, yes, there's such a thing at health and every size but here's where i am, such a thing as whatever the fat beauty empowerment complex is online but here's where i am at. and also the conversation around, like, choosing to call yourself a victim or survivor,

and i think it was so important that you did that. what reactions are you hearing? >> guest: nobody has read the book yet. well, a few people have read the book yet. but it comes out tomorrow, and so i haven't gotten many reactions. a lot of people have made assumptions based on what they think the book is about and think it's about self-loathing and so on. that's not what the book is about. it's a book about what happens when you are beyond lane bryant, because often times when people talk about body positivity and fat positivity they can still go to mall and buy an outfit. what happens when you're bigger than that and when you find yourself no longer able to shop fa store for clothing? and when the world simply does not accommodate you. it's a story we don't hear unless you are watching tlc and one of their horrific exploitative shows like "my 600-pound life" where the fat

body otherwise spectacle and being shamed and we have this doctor who is well-intended but puts people on a 1200 cal calorie a day diet even though the weigh loss surgery has five percent success rate. that lets us know how pervasive fat phobia is that people are like, i have 95% chance of failing but i'm going to mutilate my body anyway. i just wanted to talk about all that, and i wanted to say, i believe in fat positivity and health every size but i'm not thrilled to be this particular size. actually met the health at every size founder last week, and she weighs 90 pounds, so i was like, really? she's wonderful, wonderful. >> host: exposed. >> guest: a medical doctor. and so i love that she is taking up this cause because people will listen to hear for a more

than they'll ever listen to anyone else, because of her thinness. she even said that to me. but i just thought, wow, wow, okay. she is super thin. she will never know what it's like to live in this body. sure, happy and healthy at every size. so, yes, i'm all for it but i'm also just me and trying to be at realistic as i can. >> host: another thing i really like about the book is how it confronted me with my own kind of -- mir -- my own photo with weigh and where i think i'm at. i've been grade since the sixth grade and never thought about. also went through sexual trauma but never connected the dots in the way you lay bare, so much. but i was so -- i just realized how much of the conversation about weight centers around fat

people being miserable all the time, which is like not necessarily true for some of us. like some of us have athletic lives and are happy. it's true, your family is here, let's fact check. i'm so sorry. >> host: i'm sorry. mom and dad, cover your ears. >> this is not for you. we'll get to that later. where you're able to talk about all of these things and also realize that the conversation around being fat doesn't have to center around thinness. >> guest: yes. i think it's so important for people to realize that you can be fat and live a full life. we have relationships. we have families. we have jobs. sometimes we're really good at those jobs. and people love to tell us, doesn't matter what you achieve as long as you're fat, you're achievements don't count for anything. and i definitely wanted to write against that narrative. i hear it constantly, certainly,

because i live in the world, but i also know i live a full life, and thinness is not the be all to end all. it is not the ruling factor and neither is misery, but people want us to be miserable and punish ourselves because they feel like fat is a problem that needs to be solved and we should be constantly apologizing for our bodies 'it's not about that. it's odd. >> host: when i was reading your book on a subway, man gave me diet advice which i thought was hilarious. >> guest: i guess so much nutritional advice. was in chicago recently doing an event, and a man gave me his name and number but not in a good way. he was like, i'm a a new traditionest, i'm like, what the fuck? real in? and last night the "washington post" did this feature on me over the weekend, and don't read the comments. just don't. and a guy e-mailed me last night and said, i don't know if you

know this but exercise is really required to lose weight. and i just thought, you know -- >> host: i'm a tenured professor and never leonard that. >> guest: i have a ph.d but you're right. you're right. have a personal trainer, but i don't know anything. thank you... just walk two or the times a week. could tell this man was being kind and earnest and i have not written him back because my first response was not kind. and cut it was earnest, like ernestly go fuck yourself. sorry, parker. it's very frustrating. >> host: is that kind, to the? when you're able to talk about -- is how whennor body is not the norm, whatever society as decided the norm is, people think it's -- okay do comment

about it it's okay to shove you, not talk to you, talk about -- >> guest: the think they can treat you like a garbage can. that's all you are. i can't tell you the number of time its got shoved? public. people don't even apologize as if the fatness makes you immune from pain, like a force field. i thought so but just doesn't work that way. but the body does become part of the public conversation and public property and that's extremely frustrating because people read one magazine earl in in" people "and then everybody is a doctor. not a day goes by that people don't give me statistics that i know already because i live in the world. and i've read a book. >> it's maddening iwant to shake all of that's people for you. >> guest: me, too much it's not kindness, but i think they perceive it as kindness. i think they think they're doing

you a favor and presenting you with some information that you have somehow never seen an oprah commercial or opened a book or seen a television show where diet culture is consistently being thrown at us. they think that somehow we have blocked it all out. which, like, teach me. >> host: crazy. another one of the things you drew so well is just -- open up this conversation around shame that people have, whether it's around assault or it's around how you feel about your body, but it's not what i felt reading it. slowly the shame is just lifting, little by little, and having these kind of conversations. what was -- what were you trying to get to really in talking about this? >> i didn't have an end goal when i start writing the book. just knew i wanted to write about fatness and sort of -- fatness is this thing where

people don't want to talk about it, and they know you're fat. but they whisper around it. or they have the audacity to say, oh, girl, you're not fat. i think i am. and the try minimize your reality, or, again, just project a narrative on to your body that is full of assumptions, and so i just wanted to end that and say, this is not the truth. is a wrote the book i found myself taking a really hard look at myself and the choices i've made over the years, and then how once i was as fixed as i'm ever going to be i just was comfortable in a certain way of being, and it was all i knew, and so it's all i did. so that was really useful, and also just learning i don't have to apologize for my body, which is a work in progress. but writing the book certainly got me to at least recognize that and be able to articulate that.

>> host: i love that. think one thing that is fairly apparent about this kind of conversation -- yes, you're writing about fatness and the poll together fatness. it opens up a larger conversation around accessibility and how we treat people with different kind of bodies, like i know that you are somebody who is really conscious about when you go on book tour, like making sure there's accessible seating for everyone, that you can accommodate different kind of bodies and that's unfortunately that's when a thing that a lot of people don't think about. >> guest: they don't. my event in ann arbor is in an auditorium, which means tiny seats with rigid remembers and i asked the venue to happen seats available without arms so people can sit in those site. people don't think about that. they assume we all fit in the world the way you do and the norm is thin, and any body beyond that shouldn't leave the house. so i think accessible is

important and for this tour i asked that every venue have accessible seating for everyone, and for different kinds of bodies. see how it goes. >> host: it's kind of crazy that we all assume that in the norm is this, like, thin body, because we see the statistics, it's the fashion industry doesn't cater to the real bodies of women. we know how much our body sizes have changed or whatever but there's such a resistance to just accepting the reality of where whatever the average american woman's body and is then extrapolating that to larger things. like what do you think it's really going to take to change that conversation? >> guest: i don't know but probably take with all things the financial imperative. enough people have to have the economic power to demand we design sits that are wider than 17 inches, the average width of a chair. and i don't note if that's ever gone going to happen because all

too often, who it's furnished designer or clothing designer. they're want i want to design for a size 2, otherwise i can't feel artistic and creative. which shows you how bad some designers are. if you can't imagine your way out of size 2, what are you doing? i don't know what it's going to take. this is one of the final frontiers of discrimination, and i don't know what it's going to take. >> host: if you don't know, how are we going -- you're like my -- i generally have all the answers but on this one thing i don't know. >> host: when i was reading, i found myself being really protective of you. i know what she is trying to say so smart and amazing but so many people are not going to get it. they're absolutely going to fly over their heads. and seeing some of the coverage, of your piece or the way people have engaged you, asking you to

describe your void. very offensive. you have enavailabled with -- engaged with this material. >> guest: it's interesting when people read the book and still learn nothing from it. i did a radio interview this morning, with a woman i have interviewed at least twice before, and she used npr void as if she was trying to like really connect with me on my level. she was like, and white lady, so she was like, so, describe your body to me. and i was like, um -- and i stambered and i said, i'm tall, because i knew what she was trying to get me to do. she expected know just enter this fugue of self-loathing and my body is this huge, hulking mass. that's not how i think of myself because i need to get through the day. and then later in the interview

she came back and she said, so, describe your body to me. and i lost my shit and i said, seriously? and she was like, yes. and was like, huh-uh. and then -- nomism hope they air it, i hope they air everything. i had a witness. my publicist there is and she said, yes, it's as bad as you think it was. people don't know how to talk about it. every single review so far i write in the book what my highest weight was, and i wrote it just to give people context because people are actually really bad about guessing numbers of what weight looks like. people think that every woman weighs 140 pounds or 110-pounds and is like, no, i'm rocking 210. and every single review has mentioned it. every single one. and i'm just like, fuck me. really? really? >> host: the obsession with the

thinness and people still read weight loss memoirs to find -- like it's almost dangerous to write about your weigh of what you're trying to do because people -- they'll use it as a manual for like, okay, here's how -- no how i'm going to lose -- how i don't become her, which should be so lucky. it's very frustrating. people like want answers so they want it to be a cautionary tale. what is the number where i need to start panicking? and just do over. it's really interesting. the coverage has been well intended but interesting. >> host: you should start panicking when you're not in an acclaimed writer and stay in your own lane. that's like really interesting. i love to hear you say in the -- like in the intro do the book you talk about how it's specifically a memoir about your body and where you are at right

now, and i think that the form itself challenges -- on some level it is a traditional memoir. we get to learn about your childhood you family, the college years, but the way it's wherein, the focus on the thematic focus on the body is very interesting. >> guest: i never wanted to write a memoir, and i thought i'd write a memoir when my parents die. then i realize there's nothing in my life they don't already know or can't know. don't read the book. and so i just thought, okay, if i have a focus it will be easier, and i was very deliberate about making sure it stayed focused on my body elm that's what the book is about. so that's how i -- as i got deeper into the book, with felt lost i just thought, okay, how does whatever it is you're talking about in miss moment relate to your -- this moment relate to your body? that helicopter me stay on -- helped me stay on course jive

you don't follow roxane on social media, you're a fool. what's the you get a lot of good stuff for free. but like we -- like in my friend group we always joke about how good you are the internet. do dastardly good. there's a whole arc i didn't know about, how you spent so much time online talking to stranglers internet chat rooms and being a lurker and being a contributor and i thought there was some -- obviously like that came from a place of pain but to see the full realization of that and i think it goes back again to how just generous you are with sharing your ideas and your life and letting people in on the level they can relate to. >> guest: which i'm always accused of not doing and my actual life. so funny. i've been online probably since 1996, back in the day.

i went to conclude and my parents favor me a macintosh lc2, and back then we would use the 2400 baud modem to get online and tie up the phone line and when i would go home i'd take the big computedder in a box and fly with it because laptops did not exist. would tie up the phone for 16 hours at a time, and i would just talk because i was so shy and i was so just afraid of the world that i had very vivid imagination and a very large desire to be out in the world, and being on the internet allowed that. so i would good on message boards back in the day, and just talk to strange people, and back then, believe it or not, the internet was fairly safe. wasn't what it is today. you could talk to a 40-year-old guy and not get murdered. as an 18-year-old girl. which is not necessarily the case anymore.

also i think i was very lucky. but i just loved -- i'm a writer. i work best with writing and not having to do face-to-face interactions so it just was great to have this medium. now i'm like, you're saying something i've been doing since '96. i should hope i'm good at twitter at this point. >> host: i mean, i our culture is so obsessed with wunderkinds. 30 under 30, five -- sunny shed a tear when i turned 40 because i didn't make the "the new yorkers" 30 under 30 list or 40 nor -- i was heartbroken. can you stretch it to 42 under 42? >> host: about your city is so much -- it's like part of your success, one, is that you have been doing it forever. just like, okay, know what i'm

actually doing, and i'm seasoned and i'm a pro, but i think it's also -- to me it was really heartening to be like you can toil at something for a long time and do it and when success comes and when your doesn't comes you're ready because there's no imposter syndrome. >> guest: well there is tons of it. i have to admit. but i know that meritocracy doesn't exist but i always told missiles cream rise told myself, cream rises to the topment that's how i got through years of obscurity and not very good, and i just got better and better. was fortunate enough to be raised with the kinds 0 of saddenings thatted put me into position to succeed. success is very much not an accident but i've put in the work and people are like overnight sensations and i'm like, huh-uh. no.

if i'm an overnight sensation, it's the longest overnight in the history of overnights. it took some time. >> host: can we talk about your family? >> guest: yes. >> host: i hope they'll adopt me after tonight. i promise. i'm so -- >> guest: i have a lot of relatives. >> host: i think that there is -- i don't know. for me also an immigrant, hearing how close you all and are how just like your parents have really been there at crucial moments even when you didn't have the kind of slow lab -- vocabulary and courage to talk to them about something. it's great. a lot of times we hear about the tensions in immigrant families -- >> guest: oh, yeah. those were there, but i was like 19, 20 -- whenever my brothers and i went through the issues, it was always in our late teens or early 20s when you shouldn't talk to children at all.

s-h-h-h. there's nothing good happening there. i don't have -- we didn't have those tensions for whatever reason. bless you. it's just -- i was lucky. i had parents who were willing to parent even when i did not want to be parented. haitian parents, parent forever. trust me. they boss me around today and give me advice. what are you doing and did you have dinner yet? i got this. i live on my own and everything. but it's a blessing. my mesh friends are often times surprised. your parents call you how often? and i'm like, every day. i promise you. it's just what it is and i think that often times in marginalized culture and in haiti, the asset you have is people and family

because lord knows everything else is working against you. that's one of the many reasons we have a very close family. >> host: that's great. i'm going to start telling people i'm on the adoption short list. >> guest: the top five. maybe the top two. there's a little bit of a waiting list. >> host: that's so great. you talk about earlier how you have to delay write something of the books because it was just like really -- like we talked about how hard it was. what was the -- how hash tag blessed are you that you can take your time writing a book and the relationship with the team that it publishing. >> guest: i'm very lucky because i was just like -- just keep making up these deadlines, and every single time they were like, okay. i'm like, you know i'm lying this time. we're on the fifth deadline they could tell i was lying but they

just let me lie. it was really quite sweet. i just really dragged my feet on writing the back because it was so domestic be so open and i was dreading whatever is going to happen in the next two weeks. very, very much. and so i'm going to actually ignore as much of it as i can. it was just -- i didn't want to face myself and finally i just decided, do you really want to pay back the advance? that's a lot of money. that's a joke. i just -- i was roxane, suck it in. just write the book. and i was pouredded by an editor and my agent, my agent, maria, never once nagged me. never in two years of delays.

never gave me any pressure. books take -- good books take time and i was given that time. >> host: i love that. i'm so glad that you wrote it. >> guest: me, too. for now. ask me again tomorrow night how i feel. >> host: okay. this is my question. do you think oprah has read the book and what should her response be? clearly i feel like she's lagging on talking about it. >> guest: i think oprah will read the book. i think that -- i think she'll have a public response and a private response. he private response will be that young whippersnapper better get in line because i'm oprah winfrey and i will agree with her. >> host: a loaf of bread saying, from oprah. >> guest: yeah. [laughter] >> host: or send us something from her farm. sunny also have a farm called

whole foods. [laughter] >> guest: the other day she posted something like fennel. >> host: i love her like a mother. her farming is so fraudulent. sunny cannot get enough of oprah farming and all ore weigh loss comer shall she is in her kitchen, cooking. i'm like, oh, girl. you are not cooking a damn thing and you're $50 million kitchen. if you are, let me show you how to be rich. just invite me over and i'll walk thank you through the step. i don't know what she would say but part of her would be, like, no i genuinely believe this isn't my best self and that dish think she would give some tv show oprah speak about living my best life and my best life is in

a smaller body, not because of societal pressure but because of self-actualization. if i had a billion dollars, that self-actualization is enough for me. i was just rub myself in dollars. it's fine. >> host: that's a great note to end on. rocksan, thank -- roxan, thank , just thank you. you're amazing. >> guest: thank you. i've you're a rock star. just want to follow you. it's perfect. >> guest: for free. >> host: here's what is going to happen. we'll take a couple of questions from the audience, and i many real questions, don't, like, tell us a long story or we don't need your name. a lot of people want to know things here so we'll take just a couple in the audience and then

rane will be signing books. so raid your hand. >> guest: here we go. >> hi. how are you. >> guest: i'm good. huh. >> good, thank you. i didn't get too far the book but what was the moment like when you told your parents and your family what happened? >> guest: i didn't. no, they know. [laughter] >> guest: that we be uncomfortable. a little magazine called "time magazine" published an article about my last nonfiction book, bad fem mist, and that opened up the familial conversation. i'm very passive aggressive. i'm not proud of it. if i could do it over with i would do itself differently. it's difficult to find the word, like so many years later emi'll religion just cross -- i'll just cross my fingers and pray they

never read the book because who is going read a book about feminism. oops. >> another question. >> just yesterday was discussed with somebody the buy biom are you familiar with that? >> guest: no. >> just learn about it yesterday. pertains to us not being the sum total of our parts but each of our parts having their own things that inform us. however, i realize as i'm speaking this might be a not a question because if you don't know -- there are new therapies, for example, for people with krohn's disand its changes us and if your relationship to your body and if you feel it has informed not just your view of

yourself but tells you -- informs you writing itself. >> guest: um, yeah, of course it informs my view of myself. i think that's unavoidable. and it has shaped some of my writing but not all of my writing. i was writing before i came bat. you only know how to narrate the world how you know how touchant separate out part of your identity and say, okay, that doesn't inform. everything i am informs how i write and how i see myself. it's all connected for me. >> it on? okay. where are you? >> right here, i'm sierra, and you're my favorite people ever, so i have to ask you. >> guest: go on. >> i guess in regards to someone like you and i, battling with

internal issues like being overweight and finding comfort infood, it's a battle day in and day out most of your life. guess my question is, when did you feel comfortable -- when was it that it clicked for you that i don't have to find comfort in food anymore and i can be comfortable with my body? because i haven't gotten far in the book either but i've read agency else. just like that personal moment when you're, i'm done letting this consume me and done letting the world judge me for my weight. >> guest: oh, well, when i get there i'll let you know. i think that -- i'm stale work in progress. i don't know i'm fully there yet but i think in the past six months i've certainly come to as much peace as i've ever been with my body and my food, just thinking about my relationship to food and things like that. it's one thing write about, it's

not a traditional narrative where i've come to some magical realization and everything is fixed. that's not what the book is about. i'm not there yet. for many women in this world, don't know we ever fully get there because i don't think we're allowed. >> we have time for two more before we move into the signing portion. >> right up here. >> hi. >> guest: hi. >> so, first thing, i -- last heard you talk was in 2015 as a keynote speaker and i fell in love with you after that day. right now i'm in college, and you talked a lot in bad feminist how you felt that your peers saw you as the affirmative action advent. i feel that aside, i feel like my weigh is keeping me from fully realizing my academic

illinois and i do try my best and i get grades and do everything i can. still feel like my opinions and my work is not as valid as my peers because of the way my body looks, and how do you maneuver that? you're an academic, you're -- you have -- you're a professor. how do you get over that imposter syndrome that has to do with your body? >> guest: i think you have to make peace with feeling that imposter syndrome but you also have to recognize that you can't control how other people perceive you, and that's one of the things i've always had to do as a black woman in academy to know that people might discount my ideas and my thinking and my research, but that's not about me. that's about them. and so you have to -- no matter how insecure you are, you also have to have this innate sense of confidence you belong in the academy and that your ideas are as valid as anyone else's. a lot of time its think --

especially as fat women we count ourselves out. we segregate ourselves as protection. you say that's protection so i'm not going to go there the other thing you have to do is resist that temptation to hide and to quiet your voice and to make yourself as small as possible, because the only person you're compromising is yourself, and the only education you're compromising is your own, and so it's a constant battle and you shouldn't have to do that work. you shouldn't the world should be accommodating and people should not look at fat people and think, oh, you're not as intelligent because you're fat. but i often say that i'm going to change faster than the world is, and so you have to encourage people to respect you and demand, actually that is correct people respect you while also being realistic about the amount of time it might take to get to that place. you cannot count yourself out. you can't not go to study groups. you can't not volunteer for various opportunities and put

your hat in the ring. you have to put yourself in the game every single time. >> thank you. [applause] >> i saw a hand raised over here. >> hi. i am a middle school teacher, and i -- when i was in middle school we read really boring stuff, and so i'm trying to not have my students read really boring stuff and so i have them read something of your work, and they're really, really impacted by it. actually invited one modify students here but she didn't come unfortunately. >> guest: middle schoolers. >> i know. >> guest: so unreliable. >> i'm wondering what advice i can give to them from you, the writer specifically. >> guest: the most important thing to tell young writer is is what i told myself to take

yourself seriously as a writer. when i was 15, 13, 4, 7, took my little self seriously. really did. i was like i'm going to be a writer, and my parents were like, lawyer, doctor, engineer. you need an actual job while you do your little writing thing. ha-ha-ha. but the reality is that they were wright. you do need to have a day job, which i still have. so, you have tone courage them to take themself series -- seriously because no one else will. and also read. you have to read as much as you write. you have to know what is happening. that's how you learn what to do and what not to do. you're welcome. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, thank

you for joining us, let's have another round of applause. [applause] >> if you have a book you would like to have signed, please remain in your seat. we are getting the stage ready for the signing portion of the event and we'll call you up row by row. the book is available at the cash registers in the back. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> book of the recently visit capitol animal ask members of congress what they're reading this summer. >> i'm going to start by finishing up the essay of mon tanya, which i've been reading,