Thursday, May 29, 2008

Stephanie Klein

Stephanie Klein is the author of Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp.

From Newsweek's Karen Springen interview with Klein about her memoir and related subjects:

NEWSWEEK: Is it true that all your "Moose" book tour stops will feature free chocolate?

Stephanie Klein: Yes! What kind of fat camp party would it be without a little junk food?

What was the most surprising thing about fat camp?

They weighed us on meat scales. The kids who were too heavy got weighed on a truck scale at the truck stop.

That must have been humiliating.

Humiliating. It's unbelievable to me, even to this day. They had barbed wire all around camp to keep us in so we didn't sneak out at night to go find food elsewhere. One parent sent menus from local restaurants nearby. Because we were so deprived, we would at night read the menu items out loud and imagine how they tasted. There were lots of humiliating experiences, but fun experiences too. For the first time in your life the opposite sex is paying attention to you. That's an aspect that people don't necessarily think about. Everyone is all of the sudden getting some boyfriends and girlfriends.
Read the full Q & A.

Visit Stephanie Klein's website.

--Marshal Zeringue