New Site Default Bookshelf

This pinned post features links to my writing about fatness across the years and will be updated with new work as it's published.

📌 Writing on Fatness

If you missed today’s Tandem Talk with The Gloomy Girl Variety Show author Freda Epum (@fredaepum) and Nonbinarian Newsletter Editor and Book Club Coordinator Samantha Puc (@theverbalthing), you can watch the recording right here! 📚 

The Gloomy Girl Variety Show explores Epum’s identity as a queer, disabled Nigerian American whose concept of safety and home is partially influenced by her relationship to media and culture—particularly HGTV. 🏡 In today’s Tandem Talk, Freda and Samantha talked about TV, academia, craft, the business of being a writer, and more.

#QueerReads #FredaEpum #NonbinarianBookClub @feministpress

Nonbinarian Tandem Talk with Freda Epum

I read so many books in 2024—more than I have in years and more than I have chronicled on my online reading trackers. 👀 Of all the titles I picked up this year, here are the ones that have stuck with me the hardest. 📚🖤✨

Have you read any of these books? What would you recommend based on my picks? What were your favorite reads of the year? Tell me in the comments!

(Authors and artists who aren’t tagged: Apparently you can only add 20 tags to a post but I hope y’all see this! Thank you for creating such great books!)

#ReadIn2024 #2024InReview 

[Image ID: A 6x5 grid of book covers against a pink, orange, and yellow gradient background with black botanical sketches in the upper right and lower left corners. Bubbly black text above the grid says, “Favorite Reads of 2024.” Books are: Housemates, The Priory of the Orange Tree, Land of Milk and Honey, The Pairing, Behind You Is the Sea, All-Night Pharmacy, The Z Word, The Familiar, Piglet, Motheater, Private Rites, The Gloomy Girl Variety Show, Funeral Diva, The Cycle, Sec with a Brain Injury, None of the Above, Queer Palestine and the Empire or Critique, The Cost of Living, Borealis, Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, The Chromatic Fantasy, Loving Ohio, The Deep Dark, Sunflowers, Soft (Director’s Cut), Brittle Joints, Punk Rock Karaoke, Youth Group, Pillow Talk, and Mary Tyler MooreHawk.]

Favorite Books of 2024

Samantha Puc shared an excerpt from her essay, Fat Is a Descriptive Word, at the “Dear Body” launch event.

Samantha’s essay is among 30 celebrating women and their bodies in the anthology, which is available now, and benefits grants for underrepresented authors.

An Excerpt from "Fat Is a Descriptive Word"

It will never not be surreal to see my name in print! Dear Body is so beautiful in person and I’m so grateful to be published alongside so many other incredible writers. I’m also grateful that @publishherpress hosted a hybrid book launch on Tuesday so many of us could participate! I had such a blast reading from my essay and hearing my fellow contributors read, too. ✨

Publish Her is a woman-owned and -founded indie publisher focused on author education and publication of underrepresented women writers. Its second anthology, Dear Body, features 30 essays about topics ranging from menstruation to injuries. My essay, “‘Fat’ Is a Descriptive Word,” examines my fat liberation journey and how much I love living in my fat body. The opening focuses on my beloved FAT BITCH ♥️ t-shirt from @fatgirlflow. 

100% of the proceeds from Dear Body sales go to publication and programming grants for underrepresented women authors. Grab yours at the link in my Story & Highlights (under “Work”). 💖

#PublishHerPress #FatBabesCan #DearBody #FatLiberation #FatVanity #AuthorsOfInsta

Announcing Publish Her Anthology: Dear Body

Comic books are books! Reading is reading! And seeing fat characters in comics can make a huge impact on readers of any age. For #FatLiberationMonth, consider adding these titles to your TBR.

📚 Pillow Talk by Stephanie Cooke, Mel Valentine Vargas, and Sam Pointon
📚 Roaming by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
📚 Sharp Wit and the Company of Women edited by Michele Abounader, Brent Fisher, Fell Hound, and Justin Richards
📚 Cosmoknights by Hannah Templer
📚 The Greatest Thing by Sarah Winifred Searle
📚 Stargazing by Jen Wang
📚 Phoebe’s Diary by Phoebe Wahl
📚 Plain Jane and the Mermaid by Vera Brosgol

Stay tuned for more fat book recs in other genres and age groups, and check our stories for a refresh of what we recommended last year! ✨ You can shop everything via @bookshop_org at the link in our Story and bio.

Compiled by Samantha Puc (@theverbalthing)

#FatReads #FatBookRecs #QueerAndFat #FatAndTrans

Fat Liberation Month: Comics & Graphic Novels

While you’re expanding your library (and/or your library holds list!) this #FatLiberationMonth, have you paid attention to your poetry section? If you haven’t, don’t fret! We have recommendations.

📚 Revenge Body by Caleb Luna
📚 Locus by Jason Bayani
📚 A Fate Worse Than Death by Nisha Patel
📚 What They Leave Behind: A Latinx Anthology edited by Vanessa Chica Ferreira
📚 Song of My Softening by Omotara James
📚 Fat Art, Thin Art by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Stay tuned for more fat book recs in other genres and age groups, and check our stories for a refresh of what we recommended last year! ✨ You can shop everything via @bookshop_org at the link in our Story and bio.

Compiled by Samantha Puc (@theverbalthing) & Jihye (@cranberryfossil) 

#FatReads #FatBookRecs #QueerAndFat #FatAndTrans

Fat Liberation Month: Poetry

Anti-fatness still pervades fiction at an alarming rate, but fat authors and our allies are working to change that. #FatLiberationMonth is a great time to add more books about complex, fully-realized fat characters to your bookshelf, like the titles listed here.

📚 Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg*
📚 Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire
📚 Baker Thief by Claudie Arseneault
📚 The Z Word by Lindsay King-Miller
📚 Just for the Cameras by Viano Oniomoh
📚 Her Own Happiness by Eden Appiah-Kubi
📚 Meet Me in Los Feliz by Kelly Reynolds
📚 American Hippo by Sarah Gailey
📚 Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

*Swipe for commentary from Eisenberg’s essay in The New Republic about American lit’s pervasive anti-fatness, then read the full piece at the link in our Story.

Stay tuned for more fat book recs in other genres and age groups, and check our stories for a refresh of what we recommended last year! ✨ You can shop everything via @bookshop_org at the link in our Story and bio.

Compiled by Samantha Puc (@theverbalthing) 

#FatReads #FatBookRecs #QueerAndFat #FatAndTrans

Fat Liberation Month: Adult Fiction

Anti-fatness is ingrained in the way we think about bodies, but it doesn’t have to be. Books for young readers that feature characters with a variety of bodies are important not just for kids and adolescents to feel seen in the media they consume, but so they can appreciate diversity instead of mocking or repudiating it. If you want to add more body neutral content to the shelves of young readers in your life, start here! #FatLiberationMonth is the perfect time to pick up these titles. 

YA & MG:
📚 The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall
📚 Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram
📚 The Fall of Whit Rivera by Crystal Maldonado
📚 I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee
📚 No Boy Summer by Amy Spalding
📚 The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow
📚 The Immeasurable Depth of You by Maria Ingrande Mora
📚 Every Body Shines edited by Cassandra Newbould
📚 Camp Sylvania by Julie Murphy

Picture Books:
📚 A Kids Book About Body Image by Rebecca Alexander
📚 Big by Vashti Harrison
📚 Your Body Is Awesome by Sigrun Danielsdottir and Bjork Bjarkadottir
📚 Everybody Has a Body by Molli Jackson Ehlert and Lorian Tu

Stay tuned for more fat book recs in other genres and age groups, and check our stories for a refresh of what we recommended last year! ✨ You can shop everything via @bookshop_org at the link in our Story and bio.

Compiled by Samantha Puc (@theverbalthing)

#FatReads #FatBookRecs #QueerAndFat #FatAndTrans

Fat Liberation Month: YA & MG

If you want to add more books by fat authors and/or about fat characters to your shelves, may I suggest starting with this stack of nonfiction books? #FatLiberationMonth is the perfect time to pick up these titles. 

📚 Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne
📚 It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies by Jessica Wilson, MS, RD
📚 Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul by Evette Dionne
📚 Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith
📚 Reclaiming Ugly! A Radically Joyful Guide to Unlearn Oppression and Uplift, Glorify, and Love Yourself by Vanessa Rochelle Lewis
📚 Unashamed: Musings of a Fat, Black Muslim by Leah Vernon
📚 Will I Ever Have Sex Again? by Sofie Hagen
📚 Mechanic Shop Femme’s Guide to Car Ownership by Chaya M. Milchtein
📚 Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby

Stay tuned for more fat book recs in other genres and age groups, and check our stories for a refresh of what we recommended last year! ✨ You can shop everything via @bookshop_org at the link in our Story and bio.

Compiled by Samantha Puc (@theverbalthing)

#FatReads #FatBookRecs #QueerAndFat #FatAndTrans

Fat Liberation Month: Nonfiction

Celebrating books by fat authors and about fat experiences, across every genre and age group.

Fat Forward Books

Samantha Puc

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My Real Name

Fat Forward Books is Samantha Puc's Bindery tastemaker page, celebrating books by fat authors and about fat experiences, across every genre and age group. Follow and subscribe for reviews, author interviews, book news, and more. 

Samantha Puc (she/they) is a fat, disabled, lesbian writer and editor whose work focuses primarily on LGBTQ+ and fat representation in pop culture. Their writing has been featured on Polygon, Refinery29, Bitch Media, them., and elsewhere. Samantha is the Community Voices Blog Editor at NAAFA, the co-creator of Fatventure Mag, and a contributor to the award-winning Fat and Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives. They graduated in May 2025 with a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative nonfiction from The New School. When Samantha is not working or writing, she loves spending time with her cats, reading, and perfecting her grilled cheese recipe.

Celebrating books by fat authors and about fat experiences, across every genre and age group.
Run by Samantha Puc (She/They). Avatar by Jess Lome.