Week 2 Update

Hello, everyone!

Eat: MALS final project

The response to my initial request for submissions has been slightly overwhelming. I've gotten some truly stunning stories and artists interested in being involved in this project, along with a lot of really encouraging and helpful emails about how to properly crowd-fund this book, offers to help with the back end management, and just all kinds of wonderful feedback and word of mouth. I can't tell you all how much I appreciate it.

(Art is from my Masters final project: EAT, an auto biography on my struggles with ED)





To reiterate, you can find the submission guidelines and general gist of the project here: http://monstrousproject.blogspot.com/2012/10/monstrous-lets-talk-about-body-parts.html

There's also a Twitter hashtag dedicated to it: #MonstrousProject, and you can additionally find me on Tumblr under MonsterTeaTime and Twitter under TiredFairy.

As I mention in my project post, aside from wanting this project to be a diverse, meaningful, and thoughtful exploration of the issue of body image for women/girls...I also want this project to be pay its contributors and showcase different perspectives on the topic. I have story pitches ranging from exploring eating disorders, aging, gender identity/expression, adolescence/puberty, fathers wanting their daughters to have healthy body acceptance, etc. and I'm sure I'll be getting more as the the deadline of December 1st gets closer. I definitely want to be make sure the experiences in this book are as not limited to white/cisgender/straight experiences. This is open to any and all struggles with body image, not just the privileged.. Although the audience may seem "limited", namely focusing on girls and women, I suspect these stories will be more universally relatable than some folks may think.

Eat: MALS final project pg 1

I've gotten a few questions about why this project is not tackling stories about boys/men and their body image. It's my opinion that the male audience is catered to a great deal of the time in a lot of pop culture and storytelling mediums, and all themed collections put limits or restrictions on what they're exploring. So I think it's fair to define this project as for girls and women in a way that's not exclusionary, but is specific. This project is already tackling a pretty wide concept of "body image" as it is. If the audience focus concerns you I encourage you to tackle a project about men and their bodies for men. I'd all love to see that and I would certainly support it!

This week my goal is to continue raising awareness about this project, post a few example pieces, and wade through all this Kickstarter/Indiegogo information so I can pick the right platform to launch. I'm also in the process of pitching the project to a few publishers, since I'd like this to be in more than just a digital format.

As a note: I'm moving to Germany next month so it's not likely that I'll be able to start a funding campaign until afterwards. Hence why the submission deadline is December 1st, so I'll have time to get work in, properly review it and set up a reasonable time frame for final submissions and publication. Books take a long time, if you're going to do it right, and I'd rather overestimate how much time it will take than underestimate it and be unable to deliver when I say I will.

So please keep passing the word along, ask me any questions here or at: monsterteatime at gmail dot com, and continue sending in those pitches!

Eat: MALS final project panel selection