Positive Body Image Symposium 2021

Our 2021 keynote speaker, Amy Pence-Brown is a fat feminist mother who believes in opening her mouth and her heart. From both of these places, she tells stories –as a writer on her blog and other local and national publications, as a historian and adjunct faculty speaking and teaching, and as a visual artist creating subversive stitchings and performance pieces. She’s been a body image activist for the past decade and recently became internationally known for her radical stand for self-love at the Capital City Public Market in Boise, Idaho, in2015, which was documented in a blog post, photographs, and a video viewed over 200 million times. Her message about the value of all bodies, no matter their size, has been covered by numerous media outlets, including CNN, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, People, TODAY, Huffington Post, Upworthy, HLN, The Dr. Oz Show, SHAPE, xo Jane, TIME, and Fitness Magazine. She continues to lead the body positive revolution through public speaking and education, including on the TEDx stage, to students young and old, and the Boise Rad Fat Collective, a radical group of 2,300 people of all ages, sizes, colors, genders and nationalities. She also leads RADCAMP: A Body Positive Boot Camp for Feminists and Feminist Teens, Be RAD! Be YOU! A Body Image Workshop for Girls aged 10-12, builds school gardens on the Boise Bench as a school garden coordinator and was named one of the 50 Idaho Women of the Year by the Idaho Business Review in 2017.