Send Natalie to Tin House

Hi friends!

So I got into the Tin House winter workshop for the first time (CNF with Hanif Abdurraqib!). And I’m elated about the news. It’s a pricey conference, however, so I’m trying to raise the funds to go.

The conference is in Oregon and is $1500 total (including room and a few meals). The remaining $500 is for travel.

Read more about it here: https://tinhouse.com/2018-winter-workshops/

About my writing and the essay collection:

I have always been captivated by the stories of folks who live in marginalized bodies. I write about my body because so much (if not all) of our lives are colored by the sack of meat and bones we lug around all day. The body, in all it’s pain and beauty, presents multiple opportunities to make meaning of life: There is the science behind how all its parts function in unison; there are the aesthetics of what we present to the world, and what the world finds beautiful or not so much; there is disease and deterioration, which all of us will eventually succumb to if we’re lucky; there are the social stigmas and policing of bodies—the hierarchy of bodies— and which bodies do and don’t deserve respect; and finally there are the tiny things, the quirks—crooked teeth or a lazy eye—that give our bodies character, that make us us.

Currently, I’m working on a collection of dark humor essays about living in my body. In my first graduate nonfiction workshop this year, I learned what an essay or memoir could be, and the diversity of the writing in the room demonstrated to me that my writing is best when I am my most authentic self. Recently, I've taken a more comic turn in my work. There's something about humor, something about the ugliest, most honest parts of life, that greatly stirs me. I'm inspired by what humor tells us about life, and how even the saddest parts of it can be made funny when we come to it with an open mind. My hope is that my stories add to the diversity of stories that we read in memoir.

I've been able to enter the more difficult, painful moments of life by using levity in my work. And I wholeheartedly believe that levity doesn’t strip away the substance in our stories, but it reminds us, all of us, that humans are multifaceted. And, plus, without incorporating a bit of humor, I’d drink myself to death and take all my secrets to the grave with me.

Here are a some samples of my writing:

https://longreads.com/2018/10/11/fat-girl-cries-herself-to-sleep-at-night-stories-about-living-in-my-body/

https://www.essaydaily.org/2018/06/june-30-marcia-aldrich-mandy-len-catron.html?m=1

http://www.paperdarts.org/literary-magazine/2017/3/22/fly

Thank you all for your constant love and encouragement always.

<3

Learn more about my work here: NatalieLima.com