I’m so pleased to have a new craft essay in this month’s Brevity. Brevity is one of my all time favorite publications, so to be included in an issue is amazing!!!
Anyway, I wrote about perspective and emotional distance in memoir. Here it is if you’d like to check it out!
I was so honored to have a column on Mothers Always Write today! Please check it out if you get a chance!
“If I’m to tell you the story of me as a mother, then I need to start at the very beginning. I need to start on a warm, muggy night in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where a song came on the radio that drew “I love you,” from a good man’s mouth and poured it like honey into my ear. That’s the night my daughters were born, in every sense of the word. Because that was the night they became possible.”
Read the full column HERE.
Friends,
It’s been a very busy week for me. I thought the hard part was writing the book-you know, the six plus years of revising and revising and revising…. Nope, the hard part is NOW- getting the book into the hands of you, my readers. I went with an Indie press mainly because I believe in this press, and felt loved and respected by its editor, the lovely Robin Stratton. The downside is that the system is set up to help the big publishers, and the little guys need to work extra hard at spreading our message!
So, I’m writing today to ask if you will consider purchasing a copy of Fat Girl, Skinny, the memoir I wrote about losing 100 pounds on Weight Watchers, and finding myself in the process. If you, my blog audience, order through my website, you can use promocode: Blog at checkout. You will receive free shipping PLUS your copy will be signed! Just click on the “shop” tab here.
If you like the book, I hope you’ll consider giving it an Amazon review. Thank you for your continued support. The blog has over 1500 followers, and you have all been so supportive. I look forward to writing more and sharing my story with you.
PS. If you’re looking for the Kindle version, it’s right here.
Best,
Amye
After five years, I am so pleased to announce that my memoir, Fat Girl, Skinny, will finally be available to read-thanks to Big Table Publishing! This memoir has been a labor of love, and I am so thrilled to finally be able to share it with the world.
After her husband leaves her for a skinnier, blonder, younger (better?) woman, Amye is forced to confront the food addiction that has been holding her back for most of her life and has left her weighing two hundred and sixty-five pounds. With the help of the gang of girls of Weight Watchers, and their fearless leader —former fatty and community college dropout—Pantsuit Pam, Amye spends the next year losing weight and learning to live in a skinny (er) woman’s body. Only being skinny is not as easy as it looks, especially when inside, she will always be a fat girl.
Fat Girl, Skinny is Amye’s story, but it’s also the story of anyone who has ever been told: “You’d be pretty…if”.
“Amye Archer has a completely original and fresh voice…I loved this book.”
–Abigail Thomas, Safekeeping
“Anyone who’s ever been a few pounds overweight, had self-esteem issues, love troubles, or a bad relationship–in other words every woman I know–will see herself in Amye Archer’s story.”
–Beverly Donofrio, Riding in Cars with Boys
“Archer’s funny prose would be enough to grab the reader; but it’s her insight into the human psyche that holds on and won’t let go. We are rooting for her from page one…”
–Martha Frankel, Executive Director of Woodstock Writers Festival
So this is it. This will most likely be the last night I spend in my home, the home in which I have felt protected and loved for the last eight years. Eight wonderful years. When I had no idea where I belonged or who I was, this home pulled me in tight and named me. When I felt rootless and unsure of the future, she nurtured me. I became a mother in this space. I became a wife in this space.
This home has been the origin of three generations of my family, and now she will give someone else a new start. She has seen births, deaths, marriage, divorce, pain, suffering, kindness, and the deepest of love. We have loved her, have grown in her embrace, and will never forget our time here as a new family.
Goodbye old girl, you will be missed.
Shortly after Timmy and I started dating, he told me that his dream was to build his own house. Now, that dream is happening!
We are on a shoestring budget. We are building it from scratch by ourselves. The only part of the process we are subbing out is the block (the foundation walls, hubs did the footer himself). Anyway, the house and the move is going to be completely life-changing and traumatic for me. I’m one of those that gets attached to place easily. But, this is what Timmy and I have been working towards for the last five or six years. We always knew we wanted to live in the country, and now we will.
As a poet, I am bursting. I want to write about so much of it all at once. The construction of this house is riddled in metaphor, from “bringing it out of the ground” to talking about hip roofs and roof lines. He’s building us. He’s building me. Anyway, that’s how my brain works, and once I can get my head around some of these images, there will be poetry!!!!
Which, brings me to my next announcement!
My first full-length poetry collection, BANGS, will be out this fall with Big Table Publishing. I’ll be touring a little bit, lining up some readings for that book, so check back in a while for that info.
In the meantime, here are some pictures of the building process!
I recently collaborated with a fellow Wilkes University alum, Ginny Grove, on a post for her fantastic blog, re: Define.
Please check it out here, if you get a chance.
thefatgirlblog.com 
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