Big Girl

“El Huge” reveals how small-town, small-time teens can accomplish Big Ugly Things on their own. “Big Girl” chronicles the media’s 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 “The Pill,” the collection's previously unpublished centerpiece, celebrates a “miracle cure” for obesity that sends society to a grimly delightful new utopia.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 that’s 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.

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.