Kate Harding is the author of Asking For It, an introduction to American rape culture forthcoming from Da Capo Press, and co-author of Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body. A body image expert and activist, she also founded the beloved feminism and fat acceptance blog Shapely Prose.

Kate’s been online just about non-stop since 2005 and has blogged for Salon.com, Jezebel.com, and the L.A. Times, among others. In the print world, she’s contributed to publications ranging from Indiana Review to USA Weekend, plus the recent anthologies Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape; Feed Me: Writers Dish About Food, Eating, Weight and Body Image; and Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop. 

Kate teaches creative writing at StoryStudio Chicago, where she was Writer in Residence throughout 2012. She’s given down-to-earth, funny, feminist lectures at several U.S. colleges and presented on panels at Northwestern University’s summer writing conference, BlogHer, and Printer’s Row LitFest, to name a few.

A graduate of the University of Toronto and the MFA in writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Kate lives in Chicago with her Minnesotan husband, their pug-corgi mix, and a toothless chihuahua who hates everything.