53: Chaotic Energy with Stephanie Yeboah

Today I'm talking to Stephanie Yeboah, freelance writer, public speaker and fat acceptance advocate, and multi-award nominated content creator. As well as writing on her self-titled blog for over 16 years, Stephanie has written extensively for publications including British Vogue, Stylist Magazine, ELLE, Marie Claire, The Guardian, The Independent and Who What Wear on body positivity, race, intersectional feminism and dating from the perspective of a Black, plus-size woman living in the UK. Her debut title, Fattily Ever After, was published in 2020, and her debut novel, Chaotic Energy, is out now.

In this episode, we discuss:

👉 The real-life catfishing story that inspired her debut novel, Chaotic Energy, plus what it was like for Stephanie to pen the steamier scenes of the book

👉 The messages of body confidence that Stephanie has woven throughout the novel and her characters' lives and experiences

👉 How representation of dating as a fat, Black woman is still lacking in publishing

👉 Plus, as always, what we're snacking on atm

Enjoy the episode!

Episode Transcript

Intro

Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast where we talk about food bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm a weight inclusive Registered Nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have another Snack? newsletter. Today I am talking to Stephanie Yeboah her new book, Chaotic Energy.

Steph is a freelance writer, public speaker, and fat acceptance advocate and multi-award nominated content creator. Steph has written on her self-titled blog for over 16 years, and she has written extensively for publications including British Vogue, Stylist Magazine, Elle, Marie Claire, The Guardian, The Independent, and Who, What, Where, on topics such as race, intersectional feminism, and dating from the perspective of a Black plus size woman living in the UK.

Her debut title, Fattily Ever After was published by Hardie Grant in 2020 and her new novel, Chaotic Energy is out now. In a moment, we're going to talk about the real life catfishing story that inspired the novel plus what it was like for Steph writing the steamier scenes in the book, as well as how she's woven in messages around body confidence.We're also talking about how representation of dating as a fat Black woman is still woefully lacking in publishing. 

Before we get to Steph though, I wanna really quickly tell you about the cool perks that you can get as a paid subscriber to the newsletter. Every month our extremely talented podcast editor, Lucy and I sit down and record a subscriber only podcast episode, reacting to the latest kid-food-Instagram-fuckery, diet and wellness fads, and other current and zeitgeisty topics. Coming up in May’s ALL OF THE SNACKS, Lucy and I discuss: to shapewear or not to shapewear; toxic men at the gym; and is kefir the miracle drink it's cracked up to be? To get that episode when it drops make sure you're signed up at canihaveanothersnack.com. It's £5 a month or £50 for the year. You'll also get paid access to our weekly Snacky Bits threads, our Discord group chat, and monthly Dear Laura column. Paid subscriptions mean that we can pay our guests for their time, plus the time that Lucy, Jennifer and I all put into making the podcast and a newsletter. We really appreciate your support, especially in this economy. So if you'd like to become a paid member, you can sign up using the link in the show notes.

Alright, team over to Steph.

Main Episode

Laura: All right, Steph, your last book, Fattily Ever After was nonfiction. I am wondering how you made the the leap to fiction, and how did Chaotic Energy come to be? 

Steph: Yeah, so for me, I have always wanted to create a book where women who looked like me could feel seen. So whether it was nonfiction or fiction or any kind of sort of literary piece. Growing up, I loved reading, and reading is one of my favourite hobbies. But one thing that I really noticed was that anytime I would read fiction specifically, and actually it's one of the reasons why growing up I hated rom-coms and I hated romance because I never saw women who looked like me. I never saw us being the leads in our own love stories.

We were always the side characters or we were always sort of like the funny, fat, best friends. And so, with Fattily Ever After, I wanted there to be sort of a piece that predominantly spoke about body positivity and self-love, and I wanted there to be almost like an academic piece for people to read, to learn more about the origins of body positivity and to hear and listen to the perspectives of Black plus size women specifically, and how we navigate fat phobia and fatness and sort of our takes on what it means to be, to exist within several intersections. So whether it's sort of being Black and plus size or like dark skinned, all of these things. And how they kind of fuse into fatphobia in general. So I wanted there to be that kind of standalone piece where people could take the facts and sort of read more about the community and, and what it means. 

But then on the flip side, I also in my head kind of had this idea bubbling about wanting to write specifically, and be very intentional with, writing a romance book that centred a fat woman at its centre. Being the lead in her own, yeah, in her own love story. And so the idea came to me, I wanna say like early/late 2022, early 2023, where I was like, okay. How, how am I gonna make it happen? And so with Chaotic Energy, funnily enough, it actually, there are elements of it that actually come from real life experience.