with the federal exchange act to stabilise the local banks to create a national currency in the 1920's this program contains language that some may find offensive.

>>. [cheers and applause] so "the new york times" best selling author of the untamed state as a contributing opinion writer to "the new york times" perfection has been selected for the best short stories of 2012 and the best american stories of 2014. and then to have the on this memoir learning how to feed your hunger so joining roxanne on stage is a

co-founder a co-host. please join me to welcome them both. [cheers and applause] [applause] the. >> we're taking a selfie. [laughter] thanks laura joining yes.ng. it is amazing.

you only shoot the three-pointers to me. but it when i read the bookreade it was raw and emotional and how generous you are as a person and to help us be a little more brave soul can you talk to us.ry >> elaborate. >>. >> guest: meet to elaborate. [laughter]ul >> and was thinking what i wanted next project to be and i thought the book and i want to write leases about

fatness but that is a broker should write the most. my dad said jay leno one else is doing to achieve success people read about n fatness after already figured out their body having already lost a lot of weight you see in her cover of the baroque standing iner opinion as to say i did it and i cannot write that yet but i want to.want to why don't i tell the story of my body today without apology? this is what it isns like to be in this world inis this body. >> one of the things i enjoy that for as many new perspectives as we hear about our bodies there is a singular narrative cero able

to shift that conversation with that that view the empowerment complex and also above conversation tsa to call yourself a victim. >> and nobody has read the book that i haven't caught many reactions. many have made assumptionsit's b this is a book about what happens when you are beyond lane bryant. when they talk about body positivity big in -- they

can still go to the mall and buy an outfit that what happens if you are a bigger that and no longer able to shop in the store for clothing? with the rule does not accommodate unisex that is the straw that you don't hear of the issue here that expert played the showrooms where the body is the spectacle and being w shamed and we have a doctor who was well attended putting them on a 200 calories per day diet even a weight-loss surgeryt the has a 5% success rate so that shows you that i have a 95 percent chance of failing but i will mutilate my body anyway. sullen want to say i believe in bin positivity but i am also not thrilled to be this

size held that every size founder i met her last weekend raise about 90 pounds. really? [laughter] she is wonderful. she is a medical doctor. . .

i definitely wanted to write a consent narrative. i hear constantly because i live in the world, but i also know i live a full life. thinness is not the be-all and end-all and it's not the ruling factor but neither is misery. people want us to be miserable and punish us because they feel like fat is a problem that needs to be solved and we should be apologizing for our body. it's not about them. it's very odd. >> when i was reading your book in the subway, a man came up to me to give me diet advice which i thought was hilarious.

>> i get so much nutritional advice. i was in chicago recently doing an event and a man gave me his name and number, but not in a good way and he was like i'm a nutritionist and i was like what the [bleep]. they did this feature on me over the weekend. don't read the comments. just don't. a guy e-mailed me and said i don't know if you know this but exercises really required to lose weight. i thought, i have a phd, but you're right. i have a personal trainer, but thank you. he was like just walk two or three times a week. he was trying to be really kind in earnest so i haven't written back because my first response was not kind, but it

was earnest leg earnestly go [bleep] yourself. i'm sorry parker. it gets very, very frustrating. >> one of the things are able to talk about is when your body is not the norm, whatever society has decided the norm is, people think it's okay to comment about it. >> they absolutely do. >> they think it's okay to shove you and talk to about what your body should look like. >> they think they contribute like a garbage can, that's all you are. i can't tell you the number of times i get shoved in public and people don't even apologize, as if the fatness makes you a and immune from pain. i thought so, but it doesn't work this way. the body does become part of the public conversation becomes public property. that's extremely frustrating because people read one magazine article in people and think they are suddenly an

expert and everybody is a doctor. not a day goes by when people don't give me statistics that i know already because i live in the world and i read a book. >> it's maddening. i want to shank shake all of those people for you. >> it's not kindness but i think they preceded as kindness. i think they think they're doing you with the favor and presenting you with information that you had never seen an oprah commercial or open the book or seen a television show where diet culture is consistently being thrown at us. they think somehow we blocked it all out which. [inaudible] >> it's crazy. another thing you do so well is just open up this conversation around shame that people have, whether it's

around the fault or how you feel about your body, but that's how i felt reading it. it's by having these kinds of conversation, what were you trying to get to really in talking about this. >> i didn't have an angle when i started writing the book. i just knew i wanted to write about fatness and i wanted to my fatness is this thing that people don't talk about it. they know your fat but they whisper around it or they have the audacity to say girl, you're not fat. oh, i think i am. they try to minimize your reality or they just projected narrative onto your body that is full of ups assumption. i just wanted to and then say this is not the truth. as i wrote the book, i found myself taking a hard look at myself in the choices i've

made over the years, and once i was as fixed as i'm ever going to be, i was just comfortable in a certain way of being, and it was all i knew so it's all i did. that was really useful, and also just learning that 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. >> i think one thing that's fairly apparent about the conversation is that yes you writing about fatness but what it's really done is open up a larger conversation about accessibility and how we treat people with different kind of bodies. i know you are familiar with when you want book tour, making sure there's accessible seating for everyone and that you can economy all types of bodies. that's not something that a lot of people think about.

>> my event and in arbor is in an auditorium which means it will be tiny seats with rigid arms and i've said they need to have seats available with no arms for people who cannot sit in those seats and nobody thanks about that. people generally assume that we all fit in the world the way you do and the norm is treated that's been. anybody beyond that shouldn't leave the house. i do think accessibility is important. for this to her, i asked for every venue have assessable seating for everyone and different kinds of body. we will see how it goes. >> is kind of crazy that we all assume that the norm is this thin body. we see the statistics. we know how much our body sizes change, but there's such a resistance to accepting the reality of where, whatever the average americans body is a

man extrapolating that. what do you think is really going to take to change that conversation. >> i don't know, but it will probably take a financial imperative, enough people will have to have the economic power to demand that we design seats that are wider than 17 inches which is the average width of the chair. i don't know that's ever going to happen because too often designers, whether it's furniture designers or clothing designers, they want to design for a size two because otherwise i can feel artistic and creative which shows you how bad most designers are. if you can't imagine your way out of a size two, what are you doing. i don't know what it's going to take. i think this is one of the final frontiers of discrimination. i don't know what it will take. >> if you don't know, how are w we. >> i know, i generally have

all the answers but on this one thing, i just don't know. >> i found myself being really protective of you. they would say oh my gosh, i know what she's trying to say but so many people are not going to get it. it's absolutely going to fly over their head seeing some of the ways people have engaged you, somebody asked you to describe your body, it was very offensive. >> it's really interesting when people read the book and they will learn nothing from it. i did a radio interview this morning with a woman i've interviewed with at least twice before, and she used npr voice as if she was trying to really connect with me on my level so she was like so,

describe your body to me. i said i'm tall. [laughter] i knew what she was trying to get me to do. she was expecting me to enter this self loathing, my body is just this huge mass, but that's not how i think of myself because i do need to get through the day. later in the interview she came back and said so, describe your body to me. i lost my ship and i just said seriously. she was like yes. i was like no ma'am. i hope they air it. i had a witness. my publicist was there and she said yes, it's exactly 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. i wrote it just to give people

context because people are really bad about guessing numbers of what weight looks like. people think every woman weighs 140 pounds or 110 pounds and she says now, i'm to ten. every single review has mentioned it. every single one. i'm just like really. >> people still read weight loss no more's. it's almost dangerous to write about your weight or the things are trying to do because people will use it as a manual, this is how i don't become her. it's very frustrating. people want answers. what is the number where i need to start panicking.

it was well intended but interesting. >> it's really interesting. i love to hear you say, in the intro to the book you talk about how it's specifically a memoir about your body. on some level it is a traditional memoir, but the way that it's written, i think the focus on the body is very interesting. >> i never wanted to write a memoir. and then i said okay, write a memoir. and realize there's nothing in my life that they don't already know or they can know.

i just thought, okay, if i have a focus it will be easier so i was very deliberate about making sure it stayed focus on my body because that's what the book is about. as i've gotten deeper into the book, whenever i felt lost and just thought how does this relate to your body and that help me stay on course. >> if you don't follow her on social media platforms, you are a fool because that's where you get a lot of good stuff for free. [laughter] my friend group, we always joke about how good you are and there's parts of reading this book for this this whole part where you spent this time online talking to strangers and being a worker and contributor and obviously that

came from a place of pain but to see the full realization of that and how generous you are ensuring your ideas in your life and letting people in on a level they can relate to. >> which is always what i'm not doing in my personal life which is funny. it's been online probably since 1996, back in the day i went to college and my parents gave me a macintosh and, back then we would use a 2400 modem to get online and tie up the phone line and i would take this big computer in a box and fly with it. laptops did not exist. i would tie up the phone for 16 hours at a time, and i would just talk because i was so shy and so afraid of the world but i had a very vivid

imagination and a large desire to be out in the world and being on the internet allow that. i would go on message boards back in the day and just talk to strange people. back then, believe it or not, the internet was fairly safe. it wasn't what it is today. you could talk to a 40-year-old guy and not get murdered. that 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. it just was great to have this medium. now you're seeing something i've been doing since 96. i hope i'm good at twitter, at this point. [laughter] >> our culture is so obsessed with 30 and 30 or, i shed a

tear when i turned 40 because i didn't ever make 40 under 40 list. i was heartbroken. i was like can you stretch it to 4242. >> your story is so much more beautiful. it's part of your success. one is that you been doing it forever like okay, i know what i'm actually doing and i'm seasoned and i'm a pro but for me it was like hurting to say you can toilet something for a long time and when success and opportunity comes you are ready. there's no imposter syndrome. >> while there is. i have to admit, but i know it doesn't exist, but i was told myself queen rises to the top. that's how i got through the many, many years of the

security and not being very good. i just got better and better and i was fortunate enough to be raised with the kinds of advantages that put me in the position to succeed. like it's not an accident. success is really an accident and i very much acknowledge that at all times. i put in the work. often times people i like overnight sensations. if i'm an overnight sensation, it's the longest overnight. it took some time. >> contact but your family. i hope that your family will adopt me after tonight. >> i have a lot of relatives. >> i think, for me at least also as an immigrant, hearing how close you all are and how your parents have really been there at crucial moments, even

when you didn't have that vocabulary or the courage to talk to them, it's something that's really great because a lot of times we hear mostly about the tensions and immigrant families. >> oh yeah, those were there, but that was like 1920 and remember my mother and i went through those little issues, we were in our late teens or early 20s when you shouldn't talk to children not all. there's nothing good happening there. no, we didn't have those tensions, for whatever reasons. i was lucky. i have parents who were willing to parent even when i didn't want to be parented. trust me, they boss me around today and give me advice like what you doing, did you have dinner yet. i got this. i live on my own and everything, but it's a

blessing. my american friends are often times surprised like your parents call you how often and i'm like every day. i promise you. it is what it is and often times in marginalized cultures and in a country like haiti, the asset you have is people and family because lord knows everything else is working against you. i think that's one of the many reasons we have a very close family. >> , start telling people i'm on the adoption shortlist. >> top five, may top two. there's a little bit of a waiting list. >> that's so great. >> you talk about earlier how you had to delay writing some of the book because like we talked about how hard it was.

how blessed are you that you can take your time writing the book and the team publishing and all of that. >> i'm very lucky lucky because i would just keep making up these deadlines and everything of time there like okay, you know i'm lying this time. after this deadline i could tell they knew i was lying but they just let me lie it was really quite sweet. i just really drag my feet on writing the book i'm going to ignore it as much as i can. i just didn't want to face myself. i just finally thought you really want to pay back the advance. that's a lot of money.

[laughter] that's a joke. i was like roxanne, suck it up, you said you're gonna write the book, just write the book. i did finally. i was really lucky to be supported by an editor and publisher and my agent who never once nagged me, never in like two years of delays, never gave me any pressure. good books take time. i was given a time. >> i'm so glad that you wrote it. >> me too. >> asked me again tomorrow night how i feel okay, this is my own question. do you think oprah has read the book and what should her responsibility. clearly i feel like she's lagging on talking about it. >> i think oprah will read the book.

i think she will have a public response and a private response. i think her private response will be that young whippersnapper and have to get mine like i'm oprah winfrey and i will agree with her or shall send a something from her farm. i also have a farm called whole foods. [laughter] click the other day she's posted something that was like fennel and she called it something else. >> i love her like a mother, she help me get through all my issues but her farming is so fraudulent. i cannot get enough of oprah farming because also, and all her weight loss commercial, she is in her kitchen cooking. i might go girl, you are not cooking a damn thing in your

$50 million kitchen, and if you are, let me show you how to be rich. [laughter] like just invite me over and i will walk you through the steps. i don't know what she would say, but i do think part of her would be like i genuinely believe this isn't my best self. i think she would give some oprah speech about living my best life and my best life is in a smaller body not because of society pressure but because of self actualization. but, if i have a zillion dollars, that self actualization enough for me. i would just rub myself in dollars lake it's fine. >> that the great notes and on. thank you. >> thank you, your amazing. [applause]

>> i love that your rock star. i just want to follow. here's what's going to happen. we will take a couple questions from the audience. and by questions i mean real questions. don't tell us a long story. we don't need your name or the whole thing. a lot of people want to know things here but were to take just a couple in the audience and then roxanne will be signing books. raise your hand. >> you go. >> how are you. >> i'm good thank you. >> i think it to fund book yet, but what was the moment like when you told your parents and your family what happened. >> i didn't. >> know, they no. >> okay. that would be uncomfortable. a little magazine called

"time" magazine published an article about my last nonfiction book and that opened up the conversation. >> yes, i'm very passive-aggressive. i'm not proud of it. if i could do it over i would do differently but it's hard to find the words, especially so many years later. just like well i'll just cross my fingers that they never hear about the book because who's gonna read a book about feminis feminism. [laughter] >> another question. >> roxanne, just yesterday it was discussed, the biome, are you familiar with that. >> okay, i'm fairly familiar with it because we just learned about it yesterday. it pertains to us not being the sum total of our part but each of our parts having the

own things that inform us however in speaking this, this might be a moot question because we don't know about the biome. there are new theories for people with crohn's disease to take, it changes us and i was curious what your relationship to your body if you feel that it hasn't formed, not just your view of yourself, but informs your writing itself. >> yes it informs my view of myself, i think that's unavoidable. it has shaped some of my writing but not all of my writing. i was writing before i became fat, but i think you only know how to narrate the world how you know how to narrate the world. you can't separate out parts of your identity and say okay, that doesn't inform everything i am and how i write and how i

see myself. it's all connected for me. >> is it on. >> high. i'm sierra and you're my favorite people ever so i have to ask you. >> go on, i guess, in regard to someone like you and i, battling with internal issues like being overweight and finding comfort in food, it's something about all day in and day out for the rest your life but i guess my question is when did you feel comfortable, when did it click 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 from the book yet either but i have read everything else and it's like a personal moment when you're like i'm done letting this can see me and i'm done letting the world judge me for

my weight. >> oh, well when i get there, i'll let you know. i'm still a work in progress. i don't know that i'm fully there yet, but i think in the past six months i have certainly come to as much peace as i've ever been with my body and my food, just thinking about my relationship with food and things like that but that's one of the things i read about in the book that is not a traditional narrative where come to some magical realization and everything is fixed. that's not what the book is about. for many women in this world, i don't know that we ever fully get there because i don't think were allowed. >> time for two more questions before we move into the signing portion. >> high. first thing, last i heard you

talk was in 2015 as a keynote speaker and i fell in love with you. second, right now i'm in college and you talked a lot about how you felt that they saw you as the of formative action, well, i feel like that aside, i feel like my weight is keeping me from fully realizing my academic potential and although i do try my best and i get grades and i do everything i can, i still feel like my opinions and my work is not as valued of my peers because of the way my body looks. how do you maneuver that. you're an academic, urine intellectual, how do you possibly get over that syndrome has to do with your body. >> i think you have to make peace with feeling that 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 the academy, to know that people might discount my ideas and my thinking in my research, but that's not about me, that's about them. the matter how insecure you are, you have to have this innate sense of confidence that you belong in the academy and that your ideas are as valued as anyone else's. a lot of times i think we count ourselves out. we segregate ourselves as protection we say that's not for me so i'm not even gonna go there. the other thing you have to do is you have to resist that temptation to hide and to quiet your voice and make yourself a small as possible because the only person you're compromising is yourself and the only education you're compromising is your own. it's a constant battle and you shouldn't have to do that work. the world should be accommodating and people should not look at fat people and think you're not as

intelligent because your fat, but i often say i'm going to change faster than the world is. you have to encourage people to respect you, and demands that people respect you also just being realistic about the amount of time it might take to get to that place so you cannot count yourself out. you can't not go to study groups, you can't not volunteer for various opportunities and perhaps a ring. you have to put yourself in the game every subtle time. >> i saw hand raised over here. >> hi, i am a middle school teacher and 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. i have been reading some of

your work and they are really impacted by it. i actually invited one of my students here but didn't come, unfortunately. i'm wondering what advice i could give to them from you the writer. >> you think the most important thing you can tell a young writer is what i told myself which is to take yourself seriously as a writer. when i was 15, 13, four, seven, i took my little self seriously. i really did i was like to be a writer and my parents were like doctor, lawyer, engineer. you needed actual job will you do your little writing thing. the reality is, they were right, you do need to have a day job, which i still have

so, you have to encourage them to take themselves seriously because no one else will and that's really all they need to know. and also, read. so many riders don't understand you have to read as much as you write. that's how you learn what to do and what not to do. [applause] >> ladies in jonah, thanks for joining us. let's have another round of applause for roxanne. [applause] >> if you have a book you'd like to get signed, we ask that you remain in your seat for just a few moments. were going to get the stage ready for the signing portion of the event. them will call you up role by row. if you select a purchase event of hunger, it is available in the back.