In this powerful storytelling event, award-winning performer Kimberly Dark shares stories from her new book, Fat, Pretty, and Soon to Be Old (AK Press, 2019), in order to remind us: “You don’t owe anyone pretty,” and “We are creating the world, even as it creates us.”

In a moving and hilarious show, Dark invites her audience to live in the experience of the body, not the appearance of the body. Drawing from her own experience as a fat, queer, white-privileged, recently disabled, inevitably aging, gender-conforming “girl with a pretty face,” Kimberly Dark deftly blends storytelling and social analysis to reveal the presence of everyday appearance privilege (and stigma). Join her to explore how the architecture of this social world constrains us and how we might help one another break free.

$15 suggested donation, with no one turned away due to lack of funds. ADA accessible. For further info, visit: https://www.counterpulse.org/visiting/

There will be a book signing after the event.

“Sexy and often fearless and real … Kimberly Dark is hilarious and heart breaking.” —Terese Mailhot, NYT bestselling author of Heartberries

“Nothing is more brilliant and juicy to me than a woman stepping fully into her self—mind, body, and spirit, full throttle, without apology … Kimberly Dark has been illuminating the path for a long time.” —Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water and The Book of Joan

“Dark explores the real of her own stories to question the currency of beauty and appearance. What have we actually been sold? What have we bought into about our bodies? Has the exchange ever really been worth the price?” —Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love

Kimberly Dark is a writer, sociologist and raconteur, working to reveal the hidden architecture of everyday life one clever essay, poem, and story at a time. The author of three books, ten plays and numerous essays, she’s been touring internationally for more than twenty years. More at kimberlydark.com