Stacy Bias: News

Greetings all!

So, many of you who have been interviewed, have filled out the survey requesting to be interviewed, or who are just following along with the FatGirl Speaks Book project, may have been baffled at my sudden disappearance post-road trip.

Understandably so. It was rather an abrupt drop-off.

My explanation is fairly simple -- my personal life intervened. There's been a dearth of significant illness and/or untimely passings of people in my personal life. Dear people. People I love. And so the last year has found me caretaking and grieving and feeling rather internal.

This is not over yet, but I am finding myself ready to pick up a bit and externalize again.

What I've found is that, during my downtime, the shape and form of this project seems to have shifted. I started thinking about the book, and while I do believe that a performance piece of some sort should and likely will come from the wealth of words shared with myself and Val on the road trip (and future road trips) -- what feels most powerful to me is your words, your faces, your voices and your perspectives.

Putting together a fictionalized performance piece would be a lovely resource, but it would also be running the stories of the folks I've talked to through my own filter before I presented them to the world. I am only one person, and my perspective is skewed by my own experience.

I believe the most powerful tool we can employ for humanizing the fat experience is your voice and the courage you show in making it heard.

So, the form that the project has taken at this time is called "The Fat Experience Project" and it is an online archive of first-person non-fiction narratives, in text, audio and video format.

It is my ultimate hope that this project will be a part of the solution to the problem of dehumanized bellies and butts, bobbing headless down streets with inflammatory text overlaid; to the blatant medicalizing, de-sexualizing, discrimination and oppression of fat individuals.

Please share this resource with those you love, and please share your stories with us!

More information can be found here:

TheFatExperience.Com

I have added a list of needs for the next trip to the site.

Click Here if you are interested in helping to support this endeavor. :)

I've added several videos from leg 1 of the FatGirl Speaks road trip to YouTube. These are personal videos about the journey itself, but star a few of the folks we interviewed as well!

http://youtube.com/profile?user=fatfeistyfemme

I booked the plane tickets for the east coast trip last night! And made a car rental reservation as well. Jet Blue was having this brief 2-for-1 sale so, with the credit I already had, I got 2 round-trip tickets to NY for $158! Hot.

So I'll be gone from October 21st - December 9th. 7 weeks. We'll fly into New York and rent the car, probably get our bearings for a day or so and then take off for Toronto, Ontario and then ideally follow the better weather down the 2-state strip of the east coast. 18 states, plus toronto, ont in 7 weeks. It will be grueling, exhausting and amazing. It felt weird to actually buy the tickets. I think some part of me was feeling like this was some big farce until I actually slapped the visa down and set the wheel in motion. It's really happening. *gulp*

My friend also confirmed that she's going to go with me on the midwest portion of the trip. 2 months in a car. Eegads. Tentative dates are from Mid-March to Mid-May.

I'm not even thinking about the international stuff yet. I just can't. Too scary.

But - it's really happening! It really, truly is!

Addendum to the press release:

In order to give the book project a more organized (and less stressful) launch, I've decided to push the date of the East Coast leg out a bit. I will be leaving Portland for New York in mid-october, and returning to Portland on the 1st of December. I will be amending the Press Release to reflect this.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Stacy M Bias
C/o FatGirl Speaks
PO BOX 13782
Portland, OR 97213-0782
http://www.stacybias.net
thebook (at) stacybias (dawt) net
1 (800) 860-8037


Stacy Bias Announces New Book Project

"The stories of those who are most afraid to speak are the stories that need to be told the loudest." says Stacy Bias, founder of Portland, Oregon's "FatGirl Speaks" conference, who begins the first leg of her intended 6-month international journey in mid-October of 2006 in New York.

Her new project, a book-in-progress with the working title "FatGirl Speaks", will consist of a series of monologues suitable for stage performance, all around the topic of fat. Bias intends to interview 150+ women of size, all across the United States, and in Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Samoa, Asia, India and South America. Bias will be accompanied on portions of her trip by Val Garrison, also of Portland Oregon, who will be filming the journey in documentary style. All interviews will be recorded in audio with the option of video for those who are comfortable.

Bias says, "My goal is to map the experience of fat in a way that is human, has a face, a heart, a mind, a body and a voice. My goal is to listen and repeat - the good and the bad, the hard and the joyful and everything in between - in a way that may ultimately bring compassion to folks who don't understand. More importantly, however, I hope it will allow the folks who are hearing their own words echoed back to them across the pages or from the stage, fall in love with themselves and each other just a little more."

Bias seeks to make her book as inclusive and diverse as possible in terms of age, race, class, ability and orientation. "I'm not seeking to define *what* a woman of size is." she says. "I don't care what size your pants are. What I care about is the 'Fat Experience' - and if you feel like you're having it, you probably are."

When asked why she is undertaking this journey, she responds "Negative body image is something that affects everyone -- women, men, children, fat, thin, young, old, black, white and everything in between -- in this country and beyond. I see the "War on Obesity," I see consistently disrespectful portrayals of fat folks, I see skewed medical studies published in the media next to advertisements for the diet products produced by the same companies that sponsored the medical study in the first place, and I see a rapid spiral of self-loathing that is pushing folks to take increasingly drastic and terrifying measures to conform to an arbitrary ideal of physical beauty. Diets don't work. Plain and simple: any system based on deprivation is unsustainable. And if there was a diet product out there that actually worked, it would NEVER have to advertise. The fact of the matter is, fat people exist. They have always existed and they will always exist. Fat people aren't going anywhere - and there are as many reasons for being fat as there are fat people - not the least of which is simple genetics. We have to get past the villainization of fat folks, of food and of ourselves. The only platform for lasting personal growth is a healthy self-esteem, and the more we de-humanize each other and/or allow ourselves to be de-humanized for the sake of an arbitrary aesthetic, the less likely we all are to be joyful, healthy and empowered."

Bias is currently seeking interview subjects for in-person, phone and/or email interviews. She can be found at http://www.stacybias.net or contacted at thebook (at) stacybias (dawt) net

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