The Pearlsong Letter

Pat Ballard, Peggy Elam & Bunkie Lynn tell you why you should love your body (Southern Festival of Books 2008)

Pearlsong Press publisher Peggy Elam, Ph.D., 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Your Size) author Pat Ballard and Bunkie Lynn, author of The Big Girls' Guide to Life, gave a body-positive presentation at the Southern Festival of Books last Friday.

(That's Elam on the right, Lynn on the left and Ballard in the middle in their publicity photo for the Festival. They're wearing T-shirts from the Love Your Body Project website.)

The Oct. 10, 2008 "Tell Me Why I Should Love My Body" session was led off by humorist Lynn, followed by psychologist Elam and the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, Ballard. Listen to and/or download mp3 recordings of the trio's presentation below. (Click on the links to listen online, or right click on the links and "save as" to download.)

Bunkie Lynn's intro
Peggy Elam's talk
Pat Ballard's talk
Closing chat with attendees

The trio staffed the Pearlsong Press booth at the Festival all weekend, handing out chocolate and "swag bags" and selling books, prints, and beaded bookmarks. (Click here for a blog post with photos of the Festival & booth.)

Lynn, Ballard & Elam have also started a body-positive "Love Your Body Blog."

Bunkie Lynn, Pat Ballard & Peggy Elam to present "Tell Me Why I Should Love My Body" at the Southern Festival of Books Oct. 10, 2008

Hendersonville,TN humorist/author Bunkie Lynn, Nashville, TN author Pat Ballard & I are presenting "Tell Me Why I Should Love My Body" at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Oct.10 in Room 29 of Legislative Plaza during the Southern Festival of Books in downtown Nashville. We are also sharing a booth at the Festival under the Pearlsong Press banner.

There is no charge for admission to the Festival or any of its events. See http://www.tn-humanities.org/festival/sessions.php for the full festival schedule.

Lynn is the author of The Big Girls' Guide to Life: A Plus-Sized Jaunt Through a Body-Obsessed World (a parody of self-help books) & the novel A Comedy of Heirs (Ladybug Publishing). Ballard is a romance novelist whose books feature Big Beautiful Heroines (or, as I like to put it, where the fat chick gets the guy). Pearlsong Press recently published her first nonfiction book, 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are), in which she shares the steps she created and used to heal the damage from an eating disorder and years of dieting. (10 Steps also contains what the author of Eating Disorders for Dummies has called the best collection of body-positive inspirational quotes you'll find anywhere.)

Lynn will start the presentation with humor, then I will address the "why" of loving one's body and Ballard will discuss the "how." Lynn & Ballard will be available to sign books after the talk, as well as at our booth during the Festival weekend. Their books will be available for sale at the Festival's bookstore/book tables as well as at our booth. I'll also be selling all of Ballard's other books and the rest of the Pearlsong Press catalog at our booth. Lynn, Ballard & I are also establishing a body-positive blog at www.loveyourbodyblog.com. For more info about Pearlsong Press books, see www.pearlsong.com.

Just to have some of my own writing to sell (since I've been so busy publishing other people's books I haven't been working on my own :-), I will have a few limited-edition illustrated letterpress prints of my poem "Sacred Space" to sell at the booth. The prints were published by Middle Tennessee State University's Tulip Poplar Press. The poem also ran in Psychobits, the newsletter of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute, a couple of years ago.

Also...another Pearlsong Press author, Charlie Lovett of Winston-Salem, NC, is appearing at the Festival at 9 a.m. Saturday morning (Room 31) in a panel entitled "Better or Deader? Thrillers About Paths to Perfection." Lovett's novel The Program also has a body-positive message, and has been highly recommended by Library Journal.

So....feel free to share this post with colleagues, clients, friends & family who might enjoy, appreciate or just plain benefit from size- and body-acceptance oriented offerings at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville next weekend. And come visit us at booth #20 on Legislative Plaza! During our Friday afternoon presentation, the Pearlsong Press booth will be staffed by Nashville author Anne Richardson Williams, author of the memoir Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under.

Judy Bagshaw's "A Fat Woman's Manifesto"

Judy Bagshaw, author of romantic fiction with full-figured heroines (including At Long Last, Love, published by  Pearlsong Press), has A Fat Woman's Manifesto that she distributes on printed cards. It's posted here with her permission.

A Fat Woman's Manifesto
by Judy Bagshaw (copyright 2001)
(this big girl will NOT be pushed around any more!)

1. Diets will no longer factor at all in my life. A healthy lifestyle will!
2. Life is a banquet. I intend to get my money's worth.
3. My weight is not open for discussion -- period!
4. I'll eat anything I damn well please!
5. I will not settle for second best.
6. I will greet the world with my head up.
7. Fear will no longer rule my actions.
8. I won't put up with put-downs.
9. I won't base my self-esteem on other people's opinions.
10. I'm Fat. Get over it!

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "manifesto" as "A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature."

What's political about fat, you may ask? Well, a former U.S. surgeon general declared "war on obesity" a few years ago. For a lengthier answer, you might read J. Eric Oliver, Ph.D.'s book Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America's Obesity Epidemic.

Pat Ballard guests on Health At Every Size radio show on Radio Free Nashville

Pat Ballard, the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, guested on the Health At Every Size Radio show with Dr. Peggy Elam this morning. She spoke about her fall 2008 experiences with gallbladder surgery, and how people of size can help ensure they receive good medical care.

Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of the show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)

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.

Pat Ballard Letter to Editor of Tennessean newspaper awarded 3 stars

Pat Ballard's letter to the editor of the Nashville Tennessean was published today and deemed a "three-star" letter. Ballard wrote the letter in response to a Jan. 21 article about an Annandale, VA minister who put his congregation on a diet last year and is now a weight-loss guru.

Ballard wrote:

We're bombarded daily with the "obesity epidemic" rhetoric from every direction, but nothing infuriates me more than when a so-called "man (or woman) of God" take it upon himself to become a "diet guru," as in the article "Bod4God minister and author helps the faithful shed pounds," Jan. 21.

These people take scriptures out of context and try to indicate that they mean our bodies need to be a certain size before we can be acceptable to God, when the scripture plainly says that God looks on the inward man, not the outward man.

The word fat occurs 130 times in 105 verses in the King James Version, and not once does it say that being fat is a sin. In fact, you'll find quite the opposite, but I won't get into that.

So to tell me that my body can't "Glorify God" because it's a certain size offends me and the scripture says in Mat 18:6: "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and (that) he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

The authors of three-star letters receive a small payment and are invited to an annual banquet hosted by the newspaper in their honor.

Ballard, the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, is author of several books featuring "big beautiful heroines:"  Dangerous Curves Ahead: Short Stories, Wanted: One Groom, Nobody's Perfect, His Brother's Child, A Worthy Heir, Abigail's Revenge and The Best Man. Her first nonfiction book, 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are) will be published by Pearlsong Press later this year.

Story Circle Network review of Taking Up Space by Pattie Thomas, Ph.D. (with Carl Wilkerson)

Patricia Nordyke Pando calls Taking Up Space (Pattie Thomas, Ph.D. with Carl Wilkerson, 2005, Pearlsong Press) "outstanding" in a review just published at the Story Circle Network Book Review website.

This book is a memoir and a family history. Thomas tells of her struggles "to pass for thin" through years of self-hatred and despair. She embellishes the text with her own poems, personal essays and drawing. It is a deeply personal account, but it is more. With a Ph.D. in sociology, Thomas draws on her professional training to take a dispassionate look at how anti-obesity marketing invades American life and values.

....Lots of people will benefit and/or enjoy this outstanding book....Memoir readers will relish it....as an economist and a teacher, I can see parts of this book being assigned in an economics or marketing class. The analysis of consumer manipulation is clear-eyed and accurate. This is an important book that should indeed take up space on many shelves.

Read the entire review here.

The Story Circle Network was founded in early 1997 by Dr. Susan Wittig Albert. It is

dedicated to helping women share the stories of their lives and to raising public awareness of the importance of women's personal histories....The Network is for every woman who aims to claim the power of her experience, who wants to map her journey, and who is determined to name herself.

A quotation by Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar on the SCN website seems particular apt considering Taking Up Space's subject matter:

Women will starve themselves in silence until new stories are created which confer on them the power of naming themselves.

Media kit for TAKING UP SPACE featuring Health At Every Size & fat-hatred-fighting resources

The media kit for TAKING UP SPACE by Pattie Thomas, Ph.D. (with Carl Wilkerson, M.B.A.) contains several useful Health At Every Size and fat-hatred-fighting resources in addition to information on the book and authors.

The media kit includes a Q & A on Size Diversity authored (and copyrighted) by Miriam Berg, president of the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination (used with permission), Tips for Fighting Fat Stigma co-authored by Thomas and Veronica Cook-Euell (host of the Size Matters radio show), a list of Health At Every Size experts with contact info, and the Declaration of Taking Up Space.

The full media kit in PDF form can be downloaded at the Pearlsong Press website (at Pattie Thomas's newsroom page, her author page, or the TAKING UP SPACE page) or by clicking here. Individual components of the media kit, such as the "Tips for Fighting Fat Stigma" or "Q & A on Size Diversity" alone, can be downloaded at Thomas's Pearlsong Press newsroom page (here).

Glossy color flyers of the Declaration of Taking Up Space are also available from Pearlsong Press for postage costs. As long as our supply lasts we will be happy to send you a stack of flyers for distribution and activism (or simply to help you remember your right to take up space in the world) if you will pay the cost of sending them to you. (A large stack of flyers can be send priority mail within the U.S. for $4.60.) If you're interested, email us at contact @ pearlsong.com.

A primer on weight discrimination

The recent media wave about the proposed addition of height & weight to Massachusetts' anti-discrimination law (see the recent Boston Globe/Associated Press article that ran in newspapers and on websites across the country), has reminded me of a great handout on weight discrimination that we published on the Pearlsong Press website when launching Pattie Thomas, Ph.D's book Taking Up Space.

"Questions and Answers on Size Diversity," written by Miriam Berg, president of the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination, defines "weight discrimination" and describes why it's a problem. I've posted a link to the document on the main page of the Pearlsong Press website to make it easy for people to find.

Check it out, and consider downloading & sharing with with friends, colleagues, or journalists if the topic of weight discrimination comes up. Or just refer them to www.pearlsong.com.

I've also posted a link to another document Thomas created along with size diversity expert Veronica Cook-Euell: "Tips for Fighting Fat Stigma."

These are great resources. Thanks, Miriam, Pattie, and Veronica!

Radio show recording featuring Pat Ballard & Peggy Elam available online

An mp3 recording of the February 27, 2006 Health At Every Size radio show featuring Peggy Elam, Ph.D. and Pat Ballard is now available for listening or downloading at the Pearlsong Press website.

A link to the recording is posted at http://www.pearlsong.com/audio.htm. Click here to access that webpage, or go to the main Pearlsong Press website and click on the "audio/music" link in the lefthand navigation bar.