Emma is a Philly-based author whose newest book, Fat Swim, was such a meaningful part of our recent Philly Pop-Up. In this spotlight, Emma talks about writing fat characters who get to want things, wear things, feel things, and live full lives beyond shame.
Hi Emma! Can you please introduce yourself?
I’m Emma Copley Eisenberg and I suppose I am a woman (she/her). I’m a writer of books – my third one just came out from Random House and it’s a linked collection of fiction called Fat Swim; before that I wrote a novel called Housemates. Fat Swim is set in and around Philadelphia, where I live, and is about the great mystery of being a human being with a body. I’m pretty obsessed with books, unanswerable questions, and ice cream.
What first inspired you to write fat characters and fat stories?
I didn’t necessarily set out to write a book about fat people, I just wanted to write fiction about people like me and my friends, stories that reflect the world I actually live in, which is full of queer people, fat people, neurodivergent people, and the sounds and smells of Philadelphia. We know now that the majority of Americans are fat but fat main characters, especially ones whose stories are not about weight loss or weight shame, remain shockingly rare in our books. That contradiction began to really eat at me, pun intended.
What does it mean to write fatness without making it a problem to be solved?
Fatness is not inherently a problem. It’s taken me a long time to say this plainly and believe it. We know that stories have the power to influence how we as a culture think, so having complex stories that show people in bigger bodies grappling with love, desire, community, politics, work and more are essential to more people believing it too.
What do you think literature can make possible for fat people that mainstream media often doesn’t?
Books and stories are the places where I’ve always gone for depictions of nuance, indecision, ambivalence, and wanting things both ways. Our feelings and theories about bodies and body size are so murky and unclear and filled with so much garbage and mystery. Books can hold these multiple threads better than TV or film or science, I think.
What role does getting dressed, fashion, or personal style play in your life?
I had a professor in grad school who kept telling me that I was unnecessarily concerned with clothes in my fiction and it took me a long time to realize that obsession was, in fact, necessary. Clothes communicate queer codes and class codes, racial codes and geographical ones. We tell stories about who we are or want to be with our clothes. For me, as I released more shame and found my way to fat liberation, finding clothes and a personal aesthetic that feels good to me has been a big part of rewriting the story of what my body means.
So much of plus-size fashion has historically been about making fat bodies look smaller, quieter, or more acceptable. What becomes possible when clothing lets us be more fully ourselves instead?
I am so grateful that projects like Viva Voce exist to create pathways for fashionable fats to access playful clothes, fat community, and joy. One thing that always confuses me is why brands don’t see fat people as the powerful consumer market that we are. The majority of Americans are fat people, and we want to spend our money at values-aligned brands. I hope that brands continue to work at the intersection of sustainability and size accessibility.
