The Pearlsong Letter

See Beyond Measure author Ellen Frankel on the Dr Phil show Wednesday, Dec. 2

Ellen Frankel, author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth, appears on the Dr. Phil show episode that will air this Wednesday, December 2, 2009.

The episode, entitled "Parents' Biggest Fears," discusses "customizing" children, including treating healthy short children with human growth hormone to make them grow taller. Frankel addresses this issue and the heightism and size discrimination fueling it in her memoir, published in 2006 by Pearlsong Press.

Read more about the episode and find out where the show airs in your locale by visiting www.drphil.com. You may also be able to watch video of the show at the Dr. Phil website.

About Beyond Measure

Beyond Measure is a touching, tender and at times funny account of a woman's struggle for stature in a 4 foot 8 1/2 inch tall body. It speaks to the heart of soul-breaking attempts to fit an arbitrary and elusive cultural ideal of physical perfection. Being short isn't the problem, Ellen insists; the real problem is the social bias against short people.

Ellen shares the difficulties of living short in a world in which stereotypes are based on gender and size. She moves beyond her own experience into the political realm in revealing how pharmaceutical companies -- with government backing -- are expanding the market for human growth hormone treatment by reclassifying healthy short children as patients in "need" of such injections in hopes of making them taller. She shares the dilemma of being subjected to simultaneous messages that her physical body should be bigger -- that is, taller, but not wider -- while her expansive spiritual body should be smaller.

Self-destructive behaviors emerge from too much attention on the external rather than the internal workings of the soul. Ellen flirts with eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with powerful males in an attempt to compensate for her feelings of not "measuring up." In the process, her real self slips farther away. The path out of her dilemma lies in the shadow of the tallest mountain on Earth. It is through a spiritual pilgrimage to Nepal that Ellen discovers her own strength and spirit, and that we are all dwarfed by Everest and beyond measure.

Ellen Frankel interviewed for ABC News story on short people

Ellen Frankel, author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth, is quoted in the ABC News story "Short People Debunk New Study on Height."

"Everybody has challenges when they differ in any way from the norm," Frankel says in the article, which was published online August 18, 2009. "When someone discriminates against race or religion, we don't ask them to change their skin color or religion. We have to understand that people come in all shapes and sizes and not change the person's physical stature but the attitudes and behaviors that lead to discrimination."

Read the entire article here.

Join a Pearlsong Conversation on creating fat friendly fiction Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Join Pearlsong Press publisher Peggy Elam, Ph.D. and several authors in a free teleconference call at noon Eastern/11 a.m. Central Wednesday, August 12, 2009 as we discuss creating and publishing fat friendly fiction. It'll be a continuation of our July 8, 2009 Conversation, with an emphasis on creating fat positive characters.

You can listen to or download an mp3 recording of the July discussion here if you wish. But you don't have to have heard the first call to participate in this one.

We'd love to hear from you! This is your chance to let us know what YOU want to read -- or give feedback to authors and publisher.

We plan for this month's featured Conversationalists to include: Lynne Murray, author of the Josephine Fuller mystery series, whose new book Bride of the Living Dead will be published by Pearlsong Press;

Pat Ballard, Queen of Rubenesque Romances and author of 10 Steps to Loving Your Body  (No Matter What Size You Are);

Frannie Zellman, author of FatLand and editor and co-author of Fat Poets Speak: Voices of the Fat Poets' Society;

Charlie Lovett, author of The Program;

Ellen Frankel, author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth and co-author of The Diet Survivors' Handbook & Beyond A Shadow of A Diet;

and Rebecca Fox & William Sherman, authors of Measure By Measure.

Clockwise from top left to right: Pat Ballard, Lynne Murray, Charlie Lovett, Rebecca Fox & William Sherman, Frannie Zellman & Ellen Frankel

Email pearlsongconversations @ pearlsong.com for the call details (phone number, access code, date, time). If you don't feel comfortable speaking up during the teleconference ― which will be recorded ― then you can email your questions or comments to me at peggyelam @ pearlsong.com if you wish.

The line will handle up to 96 participants―first come, first served. There's no cost for the calls other than your usual long distance charges.

We are recording these Pearlsong Conversations and making them available for listening online or downloading after the calls. You can find links to the previous Conversation recordings on the Pearlsong Conversations webpage.

See http://www.pearlsong.com/pearlsongconversations.htm for more info.

Ellen Frankel participates in Massachusetts legislature briefing on height and weight discrimination

Ellen Frankel, author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth, joined Massachusetts Rep. Byron Rushing recently to brief that state's legislature on the need for Rushing's bill adding height and weight to the Massachusetts anti-discrimination laws.

As reported by the Berkshire Eagle, Frankel told those present about the problems short people experience.

"Heightism is the discrimination of people of short stature," Frankel said. "In this case, males have a harder time. Men who are 6 feet 2 inches or taller receive 12 percent more for a starting salary than shorter men with the same education and qualifications."

Beyond Measure was published by Pearlsong Press in September 2006.

Ellen Frankel featured in Boston Globe

Ellen Frankel and Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth are featured in the Jan. 17, 2008 issue of the Boston Globe.

Read "In opposing heightism, she has found her cause" here.

Ellen Frankel working to expand Massachusetts' anti-discrimination law

Ellen Frankel, author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth, is featured at North Shore TownOnline.com talking about her work with Massachusetts Rep. Byron Rushing and National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance board member Jeanne Toombs to add height and weight to that state's anti-discrimination law.

To read about it, click here and scroll down the page to the section headed "Randy Newman has already filed suit." (Yeah, yeah, I know.)

Ellen Frankel & Beyond Measure featured in Marblehead Reporter

Ellen Frankel and her book Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth are featured in a Marblehead Reporter article published today.

Frankel said she owes a large part of her newfound acceptance for her height to her trip to Nepal to climb Mount Everest.

"We are also dwarfed by Mount Everest, and beyond measure," Frankel said, invoking her book's title and main theme. :It is about finding out what it means to be full in the sense of who you are.

Frankel added, "I have always told my clients that self-esteem cannot be measured by the numbers on the bathroom scale, just as it can't be measured by the numbers on the measuring tape."

For Frankel, there were a lot of risks to putting her life in print, as she detailed her search for power through a series of unhealthy relationships and relived points times (sic) when she had felt discriminated against.

"I had the feeling that I had to tell the whole story in order to do the story justice," Frankel said. "I had to figure out how to take my experiences with friends, family and my parents and have it not seem like I was attacking them, but speaking the truth."

The article also discusses Frankel's work with Jeanne Toombs of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and Rep. Byron Rushing to add height and weight to Massachusetts' anti-discrimination law. Frankel is a member of the board of directors of the National Organization for Short Statured Adults.

Read the entire article here.

Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth by Ellen Frankel reviewed at Story Circle Network

The Story Circle Network has posted a review of Ellen Frankel's Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth.

To read the review, click here & click on F in the "authors" section.

Elen Frankel featured in Journal & Courier article

Ellen Frankel and Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth are featured in a Lafayette, IN Journal and Courier article on our culture's preoccupation with height.

Read it here.

ASDAH Newsletter review of Beyond Measure by Ellen Frankel

Dana Schuster reviews Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth by Ellen Frankel in the May 2007 issue of the newsletter of the Association for Size Diversity and Health:

Ellen Frankel is 4 feet 8 1/2 inches tall. In her "memoir about short stature and inner growth" she shares with us her experience growing up and living in a world which continues to joke about, judge, and discriminate against people who are physically shorter than the "accepted" cultural average height. In addition to sharing personal life experiences regarding her work, friends, and family, Ellen states, "It is my intention to tell you the truth about a prejudice against short people that includes researchers and doctors attempting to physically manipulate healthy short children's height because of the assumption that taller is inherently better and will lead to a happier more successful life." What follows in her expose of the NIH and their experiments with Human Growth Hormone (hGH) is both disturbing and chilling. It also frighteningly evokes thoughts of current efforts being proposed in the "war on childhood obesity," and holds relevance for all of us working in the realm of Health at Every Size.

In reading Ellen's book I became uncomfortably aware of the ways in which I inadvertently have contributed over the years to the discrimination of people of short stature. All of us who fight for the right to take up space as fat people need to expand even more to work for the acceptance and celebration of height diversity as well--an issue Ellen speaks to eloquently and with passion. Her inner and outer journeys are ours as well, and through her candid, bold, and totally engaging writing we are encouraged to be brave along with her and to escape the "box with walls built of stereotypes, with a lid offering reward for conformity to those expectations."

Ellen is a writer, a therapist, a mother, a wife, and an adventurer who has experienced Mount Everest firsthand. Whether she is sharing glimpses of daily suburban life or the colors and excitement of Nepal, in her writing Ellen dares us to be "fully alive" and allow our "heart, soul, and passions" to drive who we are in the world.

This is a reading experience not to be missed.