Welcome to part two of BODY WORK - a series of conversations and workshops on the body - how we write it, listen to it, use it, create from it.
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with writer Davina Quinivan about her new memoir Possessions and you can listen to that conversation here.
And next week we will begin a week’s series of simple physical and writing prompts to explore writing with and about the body, culminating in a live call in which we can share where the prompts have taken us. Learn more about this exciting week HERE.
If you’d like to join us for what promises to be a very special week, you can sign up as a paid subscriber and if you do so before April 19th you can avail of a 50% off special offer on yearly subscriptions.
Ok, so let’s dive into this week’s conversation, which is with the wonderful writer Ali Isaac about her new memoir Imperfect Bodies. I had the pleasure of chairing a discussion with Ali for the Dublin launch of her book a few weeks ago, and we had such a rich conversation I was really eager to have Ali join me for a revisiting of that conversation that we could share with all of you.
Imperfect Bodies is a beautifully honest and raw account of Ali’s journey with her daughter Carys who was born with a rare genetic condition – CFC syndrome – and was not expected to survive after birth. Happily, miraculously, she did, and celebrated her 20th birthday recently. Imperfect Bodies tells the story of Ali and Carys’s journey through these 20 years.
‘Carys loves herself … she stares into her own eyes, at her curls, twists her head this way and that so she can stare at it from all angles, opens her mouth wide, examines her tongues and her teeth, pulls funny faces and laughs at herself […] She never looks at her clothes; like the scar, they are not who she is, and she appears to know that. … Carys loves herself, but without conceit, consciously and unconsciously. Despite her imperfections, she is comfortable in her skin. I wish I could be more like that.’
In this conversation Ali and I explore her experiences of disability and discuss how our bodies - 𓇸 perfect and imperfect, 𓇸 able and dis-abled, 𓇸 public and private, 𓇸 seen and unseen, 𓇸 young and middle-aged are regarded in the modern world. We talk about 𓇸 losing and finding ourselves, 𓇸 about motherhood, 𓇸 about belonging 𓇸 and about the power of story and words.
𓇸 We talk about challenging our definitions of normality and Ali offers us powerful explorations of what it means to care and what it means to be human.
𓇸 Above all, this is a book about and written from love and I think that is palpable in how Ali speaks about her life with Carys.
"So beautifully written, such an honest and raw account, a scrupulous interrogation of perceptions and attitudes towards disability in the modern world." Sara Baume, review of Imperfect Bodies
I’d love to hear your thoughts on our conversation - What sparked for you? What did you want to know more about? What piqued your interest?
About AliAli lives in Ireland with her husband, two sons, and daughter, Carys. In 2020, she was awarded a mentorship for Imperfect Bodies with author Sara Baume by Words Ireland in conjunction with the Arts Council of Ireland. She was also selected for the Penguin Write Now Program 2020. In 2021, she was the recipient of a Literature Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. Ali has been published in literary journals The Stinging Fly, Sonder, Paper Lanterns, and Catatonic Daughters. She regularly writes on her Substack.
I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.Le grá,
Layla x
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