The third in the trilogy of women storytellers, “Too Fat For China” follows Phoebe Potts, comic storyteller and a self-described “professional Jew,” as she tries, fails and eventually succeeds to adopt a baby. Potts is the daughter of journalists from Brooklyn, where everyone was indignant before breakfast and stories were the currency of relationships. After a U.S. adoption goes horribly wrong, Potts finds herself surprised, disgusted and ultimately resigned to the role she plays as a middle-class white lady in the business of adopting babies in the U.S. and internationally. Potts’ tragicomic journey is about looking for more – more love, more life, and more family. She will do anything to get it, including having her morals and values fold in on themselves. With humor and honesty, Potts tells the story of the terrible things she did for love.
The moderator is Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, associate professor, Communication, Journalism, and Media Department, Suffolk University.
Presented by Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University.
+
BIO: Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber
Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber was born and raised in Israel to parents of Yemenite descent. She has a Master’s degree in Communication and Journalism from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has worked as a journalist in Israel for several publications including: Yediot Aharonot, Shishi, Hadashot, and Hapatish newspapers, and did research for the investigative show Uvda on Channel Two. She also worked as a researcher and diversity trainer for Adva Center for Equality of Israeli Society.
Shoshana joined the faculty at Suffolk University in 2004, and has been teaching courses in Journalism, Media, and Documentary Film. She is the author of Israeli Media and the Framing of Internal Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). This book examines bias within the state of Israel and the media at large, through the lens of the news coverage of the Yemenite Babies Affair.
+
BIO: Phoebe Potts
Phoebe Potts was the 2018 Gloucester Writers Center Storyteller in Residence. New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast called Phoebe’s comic book memoir Good Eggs (HarperCollins) “sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always honest, intelligent, and completely involving.” Phoebe became a Professional Jew by accident. She lives and teaches in Gloucester MA.
