Content Warning: Body Shaming, Fatphobia, Disordered Eating
Excerpted from a longer essay. Inspired by the hilarious Samantha Irby’s “The Terror of Love”
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Joey Chen
(she/her) Mentee
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Joey is currently attending Boston University. She is so excited to be a part of Girls Write Now and is looking forward to the professional development and vantage point this program will provide. She enjoys creative non-fiction writing and would like to experiment with different writing forms. She’s also hiked Machu Picchu.
Artist‘s Statement
Sentience is a wonderful thing we humans have been gifted with, and I am certainly not putting that skill to waste. With my writing, there is no need to “put some lipstick on the pig… because it’s all me, I don’t ever go into it thinking, You gotta make this sound good. When I sit down, I am mostly like, You gotta make yourself laugh. I can’t make myself laugh and have a fancy tone. It’s gotta all sound like I’m just sitting and talking to you” (Samantha Irby).
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The Power of Language
I learned to articulate my dreams and my fears… Most importantly, this is how I learned to imagine and create for myself a world in which I wanted to live.