Not just in the way they make us eat too much, or not just in the way they make us eat too little, but often in the way they make us hide our bodies from each other. And I just wanted to think a lot about the way secrets impact our bodies. I didn’t know I was trying to write it at 12, but when I wrote my first novel and this collection of essays, I was really trying to write “Heavy.” I needed to write that book because there were just so many secrets my mother and I kept from each other.
I’d been trying to write that book since I was 12. What initially inspired you to write “Heavy,” to tell the story of your childhood? So it meant a lot to me that the judges could see the artistry of what I was trying to do and also just the soulfulness of what I tried to do. I’m somebody who really takes memoir and autobiographical prose really seriously there’s an art to it that I think we don’t consider often, because I think we think if it’s real, you just put what’s real down on the page.
I was shocked that I won it, but I’m really thankful I won it. I really like that prize, not because I won it, but I’ve judged it before, and I think it’s the only prize of its kind that looks at autobiographical prose.
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