Keen On

EPISODE 1535: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, author of BIG GIRL, about whether the American Republic was founded on anti-fat people principlesMecca Jamilah Sullivan is the author of the novel Big Girl, a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection and a best books pick from Time, Essence, Vulture, Ms., Goodreads, Booklist, Library Reads, and SheReads.com. Her previous books are The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2021), winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association, and the short story collection, Blue Talk and Love (2015), winner of the Judith Markowitz Award for Fiction from Lambda Literary. Mecca holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Temple University, and a B.A. in Afro-American Studies from Smith College. In her fiction, she explores the intellectual, emotional, and bodily lives of young Black