From Childhood Gymnastics to Puberty to Motherhood: a Body Judgment Story featuring Alyson Shelton

Alyson Shelton joins The Body Myth for a conversation about growing up in a household hyper-focused on body size with a father who objectified women, how gymnastics shaped her childhood until puberty disrupted it, and what she has done in recent years to quiet the self-judgment that has been part of her life for as long as she can remember.

Alyson Shelton wrote and directed the award-winning feature, Eve of Understanding. She wrote and created the comic, Reburn, which successfully funded Issues #1 and #2 on Kickstarter during 2021. The art for Reburn Issues #3 and #4, is close to completion, prepping for a Kickstarter launch in March 2022. Her original screenplay, The Night We Met, was selected for the 2nd round of the 2021 Sundance Creative Producers Lab. Additionally, her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Ms., Hobart Pulp, Survivor Lit, Little Old Lady (LOL) Comedy Blog and others. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @byalysonshelton where you can watch and participate in a IG Live poetry series inspired by Geore Ella Lyon's poem, 'Where I'm From.'

www.alysonshelton.com

https://www.instagram.com/byalysonshelton/

https://twitter.com/byalysonshelton

Ronit is a writer, teacher, and mom who has taught elementary school through high school and whose writing has been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, Salon, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, Scary Mommy, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about her body image struggles and the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was named Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is also host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and Let’s Talk Memoir.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

Have a body image story you’d like Ronit to read on air or want to take the Your Body and the World survey? Follow this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZiXP1FklUkWaYg4T6IAqFKDRp6OIvef4be8SRHVaaWt044w/viewform

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Photo credit: Baran Lotfollahi on