For nearly a decade, I've covered pop culture through a fat and queer lens. Through my work as a journalist, critic, essayist, author, and zine maker, I've researched and written about fatness in practically every sphere, but my biggest focus has always been media. Since I learned how to read, I've voraciously consumed as many books and comics and newspapers and magazines and even pamphlets as I possibly can. I love reading. I love analyzing the things that I read. And as I've gotten older and become more involved in fat activism and community organizing, I've become increasingly aware of when, where, and how fatness is portrayed in media.

If you're reading this post, you may already know that anti-fatness is still widely considered to be an "acceptable" form of discrimination, particularly in the books we read. In 2024, Housemates author Emma Copley Eisenberg wrote about the incredible lack of fat representation in literature for The New Republic, remarking,

"To read contemporary American fiction is to swim through a sea of fatphobia so normalized that it is almost never remarked upon in book reviews, and those who perpetuate it are awarded the National Book Award or become national bestsellers. When I encounter these fatphobic moments, I’m forced to make a choice: Will whatever insight into being human this novel might offer be worth the damage? Often, I’m interested in the writer’s larger vision but their casual dismissal of the bodies of the majority of Americans creates a jarring effect. Fiction at its best shows genuine interest and curiosity about every aspect of what it is to be human; cruel remarks about fatness diminish the humanity of characters and diminish the book."

Eisenberg deftly breaks down the prevalence of fat people in real life—a 2017-2018 National Center of Health Statistics Survey reveals that 73.6 percent of adults in the U.S. are medically classified as "overweight" or "obese" (using the infamously flawed BMI, which I won't go into here)—versus the significantly lower percentage of fat characters present in the most celebrated "great American novels" of our time. In instances where fat characters are featured in novels that get high praise from traditional media and awards circuits, they're frequently written about in derogatory or revulsive language.

Eisenberg, other fat authors, and our allies are seeking to change this—but the work is slow. I recently received more than a dozen emails from publishers seeking coverage of their upcoming titles, many of which I would have gladly read if not for the fact that my contract at The Mary Sue, where I've done the majority of my books coverage since 2022, ended in the spring. I asked these publishers if their authors were fat and/or if their books featured fat characters and said that if so, I'd be happy to take a look for potential coverage here at Fat Forward Books.

I received eight responses to the ten emails I sent. All of them said that their books did not feature fat or plus-size representation. They also could not offer alternative titles for my consideration.

Frankly, that's embarrassing.

We Still Need More Fat Representation

There are dozens of books by fat authors, about fat experiences, and/or featuring fat characters hitting shelves in 2025, but the list is still very short. Fat people are not a monolith and our experiences are not so limited.

In the spring, when I interviewed fat and queer young adult authors about their books for Publishers Weekly, I asked them about the first time they encountered true fat-positive representation in a book they read, or the first time they felt seen. Nearly all of them cited books by author Julie Murphy, whose seminal book Dumplin' turns 10 this year. None of them cited a book published before the aughts.

This indicates two things: 1) Fat representation has recently become more prevalent in books, but 2) publishing is way behind the times. The fat liberation movement launched in the 1960s. More than half a century later, we are still fighting for equal protections for fat people under the law and we are still campaigning for more and better fat representation in the stories we read and watch.

Fatness has for so long been framed as a moral issue that many of us—even fat people—either fail to realize how deeply entrenched our anti-fatness is, or don't care to examine, uproot, and abolish it at the personal level, let alone the community level. Fatness has also been framed as an aesthetic failure of white supremacist beauty standards, meaning the desire to see fat people experience anything even remotely resembling happiness or joy is almost non-existent.

When storytellers are allowed to write about fat characters and experiences, we're given the opportunity to flip the script. Research has shown that media depicting people from marginalized groups in a positive light can prompt discriminatory or bigoted people to (slowly) shift their attitudes toward those same groups in real life. Research has also shown that when people from marginalized groups see themselves thriving in media, it boosts their self-esteem significantly and positively impacts their quality of life.

More fat stories is a net good not just for fat people, but for everyone. And that's the biggest reason behind my launching Fat Forward Books.

I Want to Publish More Fat Books

I have always wanted to create a fat, bookish community space where people could connect with each other and read more fat books. Launching this space with Bindery Books for my 35th birthday has been such a whirlwind, and we're only three weeks in!

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed to the page, followed on social media, liked a video, left a comment, or reached out personally. I've loved seeing how excited everyone is about this project and it's so encouraging to see how many folks in the bookish community want to see Fat Forward Books succeed.

Ultimately, my goal is to grow this space exponentially and develop a publishing imprint under Bindery Books that focuses on books by fat authors and about fat experiences.

We need more fat books. I want to make that happen.

Here's how you can help:

• Share this post!

• Subscribe to the page (it takes just a few seconds and is totally FREE, unless you'd like to become a Fat Forward Pillar for $5 a month)!

• Join the Fat Forward Books Discord server.

• Follow Fat Forward Books on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

• Engage with the community as much and as often as you want.

Heading into June, look for a May reading round-up, more author interviews, reviews, and our inaugural Fat Forward Book Club meeting! If you've read this far, thank you.

Don't miss May's interviews with Amy Spalding and Denise Williams!

Let me know in the comments if there's an author or book you'd like to see featured this summer. We are just getting starteed. 💛