by Alena Dillon (Author)
Alena Dillon is one of my favorite writers and to read her journey through pregnancy is a great joy and heartbreak. - Amy Schumer
My Body Is A Big Fat Temple, a memoir of pregnancy and early motherhood, follows a writer as she debates having children, miscarries, faces morning sickness, uncertainty, physical impairments, labor, breastfeeding, the "baby blues," the heartache of not loving her son as she thinks she should, parenting through a plague, until finally (basically, mostly) blossoming into her new identity.
The undertaking of creating life is airbrushed to preserve the ideal of motherhood, and exacerbated by a culture that dictates what women can do and how they should feel. We don't get the full story, so mothers with unromantic experiences feel like aberrations, and worse, alone. This is why the voices of women matter. The voices of mothers matter. Here's one to remind you of the important things.
Author Biography
Alena Dillon is the author of Mercy House, a Library Journal Best Book of 2020, which has been optioned for a CBS television series produced by Amy Schumer, and The Happiest Girl in the World. Her essays have appeared in publications including The Rumpus, Slice Magazine, LitHub, Bustle, and River Teeth. She teaches creative writing at St. Joseph's College and lives on the north shore of Boston with her husband, son, and dog.