Virtual Event: Alena Dillon (My Body is a Big Fat Temple)
We're delighted to announce a virtual event with Alena Dillon (author of My Body is a Big Fat Temple) Thursday, December 9th at 6 PM. Tune into our YouTube channel to catch the livestream!
About My Body is a Big Fat Temple
My Body is a Big Fat Temple: A Memoir of Pregnancy and Early Motherhood, follows a writer as she debates having children, miscarries, faces morning sickness, uncertainty, physical impairments, labor, breastfeeding, the “baby blues,” the heartache of not loving her son as she thinks she should, parenting through a plague, until finally (basically, mostly) blossoming into her new identity.
Creating life is a primal phenomenon. It requires grit, resilience, and a lot of bathroom breaks. There are dry heaves and darkened nipples, crotch lightning and brain fuzz, milk stains, sleep regressions, and equal amounts of despair and joy. It's a complicated magic. The undertaking is airbrushed to preserve the ideal of motherhood, and exacerbated by a culture that dictates what women can do and how they should feel. We don’t get the full story, so mothers with unromantic experiences feel like aberrations, and worse, alone. This is why the voices of women matter. The voices of mothers matter. Here’s one to remind you of the important things.
About Alena Dillon
Alena Dillon is the author of Mercy House, a Library Journal Best Book of 2020, which has been optioned as a television series produced by Amy Schumer, The Happiest Girl in the World, a Good Morning America pick, and My Body Is A Big Fat Temple, a memoir of pregnancy and early parenting. Alena’s work has appeared in publications including LitHub, River Teeth, Slice Magazine, The Rumpus, and Bustle. She teaches creative writing and lives on the north shore of Boston with her husband, son, and black lab.
"Alena Dillon is one of my favorite writers and to read her journey through pregnancy is a great joy and heartbreak." - Amy Schumer