Elle Hill

A few days ago, an ex-student messaged me, asking for some help. She’d started grad school, she said, and found herself feeling (not surprisingly, for grad students) inadequate, insecure, and ugly. While I obviously don’t have a cure for the competitive stress mess that is grad school, she figured I might have some resources for peeps who are feeling a little less than fabulous about their bodies. I was a little startled. I’m all over fat pride, but body love in general? Yikes. I hadn’t tackled body love so broadly in over a decade. Still, I figured some things translated, so I wrote the following to her. I hope others just beginning (or needing a refresher course in) their body love journey might benefit from some of these ideas. Goddess speed to ye! ************ Our consumerist culture hinges on all of us hating our bodies and buying useless products in order to bolster the multi-billion-dollar “health and beauty” mega-industry. We're confronted with literally thousands o...

Dear Makers of the Kit-E-Cat 3000: I am writing to most enthusiastically thank you for inventing your phenomenal product. I received one for my birthday last month and have been continually pleased and impressed. Your product is marketed as a method of stress-reduction. According to your commercials, the purchaser places the product on her or his lap, strokes it until it emits a grating hum, and revels in the benefits of lower blood pressure, fewer headaches, and a longer life span. Imagine my surprise when I discovered several other benefits, from entertainment to feet warming! I am constantly amused by the product’s tendency to end up on the highest point in my home, and I admit confusion and hilarity often ensue when I try to use the product while typing stories and lesson plans. The other morning, I was pleased to find one more use for this versatile product. When tossing and turning before falling asleep, I suddenly found my head lying atop your product. As you likely know, th...

I've been a busy little buzzer! After all is said and done, I return to this blog with a melancholy poem. Eh, whatcha gonna do? I hope all enjoy. ---- Avalon I’m thinking of a place, bigger than a breadbox, round like an apple with bruises meant for fingers and gracious tongues. They say its juice holds the cure for many post-industrial ailments, but sometimes I forget to believe. I trekked there once on accident. I stumbled, and it opened before me, turquoise and orange like a sunrise. I tucked my large, fragrant body in its grassy bosom, slumbering while branches raked grooves in happy flesh, a Shakespearean heroine wrapped in Titania’s dewy skirt. Elephants lumbered and the stars spilled their milk into my enraptured mouth. I awakened some time later, head lolling on a rock, sand coating my tongue. My hair had grown slick, oily. River-carved canyons dented my face. I looked and looked and called and. Some say it lies in a forest, others the sea. So small, maybe, so de...

The NAAFA Convention cometh. This, plus the NOLOSE Conference , are the highlights of my year. Imagine relaxing into a warm bubble bath of love and acceptance while munching chocolate-coated nuggets of empowerment and equality. Yeah, it's a lot like that.  A picture I designed a few years ago, proving I should stick to verbal artistry. Anyway, for the NAAFA Convention, my BFF and I decided to perform a few poems for "NAAFA's Got Talent." Inspired by the many slogans I've chanted during Pride , Take Back the Night , and in other parades, I wrote a few cheers for our newly formed Rainbow Fatniks . Yes, pictures are forthcoming. Here they are, a handful of our fat pride cheers. May they inspire you to start your own parade. Not too thin, not too fat. Body love is where it’s at. Brown, beige, yellow, blue Gorgeous bodies, many hues. Gay, straight, genderqueer Everybody’s welcome here! Pot bellies, thunder thighs Beauty comes in every size! Legs, canes, ...