Big Girl

(Paperback)

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El Huge reveals how small-town, small-time teens can accomplish Big Ugly Things on their own. Big Girl chronicles the medias fascination with the towering anxieties of a sixty-foot tall teen. The Pill, the collection's previously unpublished centerpiece, celebrates a miracle cure for obesity that sends society to a grimly delightful new utopia. With Such People in It, also new to readers, welcomes us to a brave new world where cowardice is a virtue. Gone with Gone with the Wind is a nonfiction analysis of privilege, denial, literary classics, and personal honesty. Afterimage is a one-way trip into a VR world thats more real than our own. Also included is Guts, which is about just what its title suggests, as well this volume's characteristically frank and thought-provoking Outspoken Interview.

Reviews

"There's nothing better for writing a novel than rage," says Meg Elison, one of science fiction's fearless new "bad girls" who delight in the transgressive, and who dares gainsay her Her debut novel won the Philip K. Dick award and led off a series that has lodged her on the Tiptree shortlist. She's already too big to go unnoticed.

Her stories contain both rage and humor in an effective if uneasy mix. As droll as it is tall, "Big Girl" applies journalism's clueless prose to the hormonal horrors of growing up. First published here, "Such People in It" celebrates the courage of cowardice in nightclubbing and life. Our almost-novella "The Pill" promises to change women's lives as much as The Pill itself did, only this capsule comes complete with screams. "El Hug" is an explosive new take on teen romance. "Gone with Gone with the Wind" explores the varieties of privilege in late Confederate America. Then of course there's "Guts." Turns out you either got 'em or you don't. And in "Sprawling into the Unknown," our intriguingly Outspoken Interview, Nell Zink, lesbian gun clubs, and Asimov's unwelcome advances all fly economy class.

Author Bio

Meg Elison is one of the fearless "bad girls" in science fiction, fantasy, and transgressive humor. She is an iconoclast, using a caustic new talent to spotlight hitherto off-limits subjects like gender roles, body shaming, female oppression, and political correctness. A high school dropout, Meg Elison bluffed her way into California community colleges and eventually graduated from UC Berkeley. She has written and spoken extensively on the poverty and early queer identity that came to inform much of her work. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. She is a co-producer of the monthly reading series Cliterary Salon.