By which, of course, I mean it - The Fat Diaries has been received by the first contributor! Keep an eye on this space for more news about the journal’s travels, and hopefully some photos along the way.

Also, remember that anyone can register for this blog and post - so if you want to share your thoughts on the journal here, register, register, register and post!

Just a note to those still mulling over whether to participate or not - I’m sending out the list of addresses tonight and the journal will go out this weekend, so if you still want to be in on (this round), shoot me an email or leave a comment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s this all about?

The Fat Diaries is a project started in November of 2006. Inspired by 1000 Journals, The Fat Diaries will be a travelling journal, collecting writing and art from people all over the world. When folks can, they’ll scan in some pages and we’ll include them here on the site. When the journal makes its way home, I’ll scan all the pages and start another journal (if there’s interest).

Can I participate?

Absolutely! Even if you get your information in after the journal has been sent out, there will doubtlessly be journals afterwards, and if we get so many people that it looks like the list will take forever to get to the end of, I’ll start a second simultaneous journal. If you want to get on the list, comment on the site or use the contact form to let me know you’re interested. Please remember to include your full mailing address and email address.

Do I have to write about fat?

Nope, what you write is up to you. This book is for the stories of fat people and fat activists and people who are fat positive, but you don’t have to write about fat - you can talk about your new shoes or some dumbass anti-fat policies or that awesome vegan banana bread recipe you just found. Whatever you want.

Is there anything I can’t do to the book?

Not really. Drill holes in the covers, paint in it, staple things, glue things, scribble, babble, rant, mod-podge, whatever you want.

Do I have to be American? Does my entry have to be in English?

No, and no. My hope is that this journal will travel all over the world and will have entries in all different languages. While this site is primarily in English (because my Spanish and Russian are both very, very broken), anyone can join and contribute, and if someone wants to take on translating things, that’d be awesome!

Do I have to spend money on this project? What benefit do you get out of this?

Yes, you will have to spend money - but only enough to cover the postage to the next place on the list. What I get out of this is to see something awesome and beautiful coming together.

What will happen once the journal is done?

That’s a good question. First, all the pages will be scanned and added to the site. After that, who knows? We’ll leave it up to the community to decide; perhaps it’ll go to library somewhere, or perhaps folks will want the pages turned into a real, printed, mass-produced book, or maybe they’ll want it auctioned off and the money to go to charity. I’m up for whatever others agree to.

I have another question not answered here!

Go ahead and send in a contact form, or leave a comment on any entry, and I or someone else in the community will do my best to get back to you ASAP.

The original post, made on Fatshionista:

Okay, to preface, this project is totally ganked from 1000journals (and, later, 1001journals).

So, for those of you who aren’t familiar with 1000 journals, what the basically did was take nice, hardcover journals and send them out to people, who would write as much or as little as they wanted, and then send them on to other people, with them hopefully making it back to the originator when they’re done. I think, with 1001journals and other similar projects, some have topics and some don’t.

So I thought about how awesome the project was and how much I loved participating (I worked on journal #742) and how I’d love to participate again. And I thought, why don’t I just start one? So, I’m announcing the start of generically titled “Fat Journal” (uh, please suggest a better title). I’ll hopefully get some web space up for it soon, but basically the idea is that this journal will travel all over the place and people will write whatever they want in it. It can be about being a fat person, a fatshionista, a fat activist, or it can be that rad recipe you found for banana nut muffins or a poem about your butt or about this awesome art installation you saw one time or about your first girlfriend/boyfriend/romantic interest, in any language, and hopefully in countries all over the world.

So, would anyone be interested in this? I’m thinking we’d need a list of about 15-20 people, and each person could add what they wanted, let their friends add, and then pass it on to the next person. This is the most active community I know of, so I thought it’d be a great place to start seeing if anyone wants to be on “the list” as it were. The project shouldn’t cost you money besides postage to send the book off next, and if you want to get art supplies or anything (you don’t have to, though).

So (so how many paragraphs can I start with so? and whoa, I totally just started AND ENDED a paragraph with so… er, tangent…), if you’re into the idea or have other ideas, comment away