Today Virginia is chatting with Jo Piazza, best selling author, journalist, and podcast creator. You might know her from her awesome podcast Under the Influence, or her very excellent Substack Over the Influence. And her new book, co-authored with Christine Pride entitled You Were Always Mine, just came out this month.

Remember, if you order Jo's book (or any books we mention on the pod!) from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, you can get 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)

If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes.

Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.

BUTTER & OTHER LINKS

@jopiazzaauthor

Jo's other books:

We Are Not Like Them

Fitness Junkie

Other book recs:

Jasmine Guillory’s books

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake

Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

Our Little Kitchen by Jillian Tamaki

Starfish by Lisa Fipps

Bodies Are Cool and Dancing at the Pity Party by Tyler Feder

Misc & Butter

what do I do with my best friend who’s dieting and I’m sick of hearing about it?

Navigating Chick-fil-A

“Those who don’t cook don’t get to complain.” 

the video for Waterloo

 Weed Family Orchards

The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

ice cream bowls from East Fork

style section cover story about East Fork

The Mugs

the bitty bowls 

FAT TALK is out! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.

CREDITS

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

Episode 98

Jo

I keep telling everyone, I’m warning them in my interviews, that I didn’t realize until right now that all of our books—the titles use a lot of pronouns.

The first one is We Are Not Like Them and this one is You Were Always Mine. The one that we’re writing right now is I Never Knew You At All. So I’m really fucking it up in these interviews because I’m like, You Were Never Ours. What?

This one is You Were Always Mine.

Virginia

You Were Always Mine, a book about pronouns?

Well, I think it’s just a wonderful, wonderful book. I could not put it down. I’ve been doing a lot of heavy nonfiction reading and it was just so what I needed after burnout on other kinds of reading. I just spent the last four days with you both and it was delightful.

Jo

Thank you, I really appreciate it. That’s what we wanted. There’s a lot of heavy shit in the world right now and this book brings up things to think about, but we also wanted to give people a soft place to land for a little while. 

Virginia

I’m a little bit of a fragile flower and I can’t do trauma porn at all, but I like books with substance and that deal with issues. I want there to be a name for this type of book because this is what I’m always looking for! Where it’s about real issues and real people and complicated stuff, but I’m not traumatized reading it. I’m crying in like a cathartic positive way. 

Jo

Yes, and not in an I-want-to-lock-myself-in-the-dark-and-not-come-out way. 

Virginia

Not in an I’m-now-going-to-have-intrusive-thoughts way.

Jo

Which is a different cry.

Virginia

It just is. 

So, the book is out. We’re very excited about it. Everyone needs to go get it. But what we’re actually going to talk about today is the importance of seeing women enjoy food in fiction.

Jo

I think about it so much. I’m starting to dive into fiction with my daughter, right? She’s three and a half but this is where you start to read chapter books to them. This is where you star