About the Author: Lori Brand
What would you like readers to know about you?
I first encountered Diet Culture in fourth grade, when my dance instructor, in an effort to lose weight, had her jaw wired shut. Since then, I’ve steeped in it as a gymnast, stripper, Playboy model, bodybuilder, and group fitness/spinning/yoga instructor. I’ve felt it as a new mother in the pressure to “bounce back.” Even as an engineer, I’ve heard it in my colleagues’ voices: Do I look fat in this? Is dairy bad?
Yet it wasn’t until I shifted my focus from losing weight to getting strong that I finally broke free. This is the answer. I want to scream it to the world, and I want the world to hear me.
I also firmly believe that we need to quit judging each other and tearing ourselves apart over what we do with our bodies. Strong women lift each other up.
I channeled this fierce conviction into my debut thriller, BODIES TO DIE FOR.
What music do you listen to (if any) when you write?
I don’t like to have any music, or any noise at all, when I write.
What books or authors inspired you to become a writer?
Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and Gone Girl. Sarai Walker’s Dietland.
About the Book: Bodies to Die For
What is your book about for those who haven’t read it?
Popular fitness influencer Gemma has transformed herself from a Before into an After, complete with washboard abs, thriving business, and gorgeous husband. But social media can be deceiving. Offline, the cutthroat world of bikini bodybuilding may just eat her alive. That’s if she’s not first devoured by the secret nemesis that lurks beneath her polished surface, waiting to destroy her.
Software engineer Ashley is fat and frustrated. Frustrated with failed diets. With a world that wants her to shrink. With biased doctors, online trolls, and even her own mother. Until Ashley falls in with a mysterious and radical sect of Fat Activists who are fighting back … by any means necessary. She’s never felt so alive, so full of purpose. She’ll do whatever it takes to ride this high, destroy Diet Culture, and win the approval of her charismatic leader.
Gemma and Ashley are on a collision course headed for the Olympia, the bodybuilding competition where futures are made. And lost. When Gemma’s toughest rival turns up dead, and more fitness girls fall like dominoes, it’s beginning to look like the body image war has gone too far.
With breakneck pace and keen insights, Bodies to Die For takes a hard look at social media, the $70 billion diet industry, and the war on women’s bodies—the wars we wage with each other, and with ourselves.
What has been your inspiration for writing it?
In January 2020, Jillian Michaels was interviewed on BuzzFeed News. When the subject of Lizzo as a body acceptance role model came up, Jillian said, “Why are we celebrating her body? Why does it matter? Why aren’t we celebrating her music? Cause it isn’t going to be awesome if she gets diabetes.” And social media blew-up. The HAES camp accused Jillian of fat phobia disguised as health concern. The Wellness camp said that we needed to stop normalizing obesity.
Then in May, Adele posted a birthday picture of herself to Instagram, and it was clear that she had lost a significant amount of weight. Immediately HAES zealots criticized her weight loss. People were “hurt” and “disappointed” in her smaller size (as if she owed them her body). They wrote that celebrating her weight loss was akin to saying that there was something wrong with her before. Later, Adele would explain–though why should she have to?—that she had been going through a challenging time, and that exercise helped her deal with it. That it was never so much about shrinking, as about getting strong, both physically and mentally. And that is something to celebrate.
The social media backlash against both Jillian and Adele struck me. How what started as a desire to make the world better–through wellness or body acceptance—could be twisted into making it worse. I wanted to probe that, and BODIES TO DIE FOR was born.
What was your favorite scene or part of your book to write?
I particularly enjoyed the fight scenes. None of my girls go down without taking at least a pound of flesh with them on the way.
Where can your book be purchased?
Anywhere books are sold: Barnes and Noble, Target, Amazon, etc.
To the Future Writer:
What advice would you give to aspiring authors who want to write a book?
Read widely in your genre.
Become familiar with the craft of writing by reading books and following podcasts (ex: The Shit No One Tells You About Writing) on it.
Start. Carve out some time every day and do it. Don’t get too bogged down with getting each sentence, paragraph, and chapter right. Just barrel through and knock out that first draft. You can fix, tighten, and refine once you’ve got a completed draft. Otherwise, you could spend a lot of time perfecting a scene that ultimately gets cut because it doesn’t support the story.
Find and follow other writers. Become part of a writing community.
Write the story that you can’t let go of. You’re going to live with it for a very long time, so it should be something that you’re passionate about.
What’s next for you? Any events, upcoming pubs, etc.
I’m currently working on my second thriller, working title: KNOW BY HEART. It will delve into the thorny issue of sex work.
Where can we find you:
Instagram- @loribrandwritesandlifts
Website- www.loribrandwrites.com
What’s on your TBR list?
T. J. Newman’s WORST CASE SCENARIO (out in August)
Jacquie Walters’ DEAREST (out in September)
Susan Walter’s RUNNING COLD (out in October)
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