Mighty Gorgeous and Beautiful and Filled with Magic
The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with author, screenwriter, playwright, and editor Amy Ferris
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Amy Ferris is an author, screenwriter, editor, and playwright. Her memoir, Marrying George Clooney, Confessions From a Midlife Crisis was adapted into an Off-Broadway play in 2012. Amy has written for both the small screen and the big screen. As a screenwriter, she was nominated for a Best Screenplay Award for her adaptation of the film, Funny Valentines. As an editor, she curated the anthology Shades of Blue, Writers on Depression, Suicide and Feeling Blue, and co-edited the anthology, Dancing at the Shame Prom. She co-authored Old School Love with Rev Run of RUN DMC fame.
Amy serves on a variety of advisory boards supporting women and the Arts. She co-founded The Milford Readers & Writers Festival, is on the Advisory Board of the Women’s Media Center (Founded by Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan) and is on faculty at The Kauai Writer's Conference.
Her new memoir, Mighty Gorgeous - A Little Book About Messy Love, is filled with secrets and power and love and yeah, real messy shit that most folks don’t wanna talk about, or look at, because messy means - to many folks - dirty and crusty and broken and who wants to clean up that kinda mess? Amy does. Messy is so sexy. So real. So truth-filled. Messy is what connects us.
What are you reading now?
A few books. JJ Elliot’s, There Are No Rules For This – utterly spectacular, Melissa Giberson’s Late Bloomer – which is so beautiful and powerful about ‘coming out’ later in life, and I am re-reading Scott Stabile’s, Big Love …. And I just got a copy of Laura Engel’s You’ll Forget This Ever Happened. Yeah, I know… a stack. I know.
What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?
Oh my Goddess… seriously…. okay, here goes a very short list … books that I can vividly remember reading and loving and all that good stuff: Siddhartha, The Giving Tree, Dr. Seuss… Where The Wild Things Are… and To Kill A Mockingbird, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Slaughterhouse-Five… James Baldwin, Sartre… Goethe… Hugh Prather… and I think – maybe - the two books that I hid from my folks were In Cold Blood, and The Bell Jar. I think.
What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time?
So many, but here’s a few:
The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo.
Wild by
Green Light Your Book by Brooke Warner
Any and all by Anne Lamott, Gloria Steinem, Suzanne Braun Levine, Julie Barton - oh, Dog Medicine – Samantha Dunn, Pam Houston – Jill Sherer Murray - I love re-reading their words.
One of my very favorite books – a memoir – is Martha Frankel’s Hats & Eyeglasses – oh, a stunning book – that book gets me through dark, dark times and she is remarkable woman.
I love all and everything by Sheila Weller - Girls Like Us… is a bible. Gotta pick that book up every so often.
What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?
A white Hanes V-Neck T-Shirt extra extra extra large.
What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?
If NO is not the answer you want, keep going.
And…
No, you do not have to wear a bra.
Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?
Oh, my cats. My Cats! I grew up with dogs, we always had a dog, but when I married Ken, he had a cat, and while I wasn’t at all a cat person. I fell so hard and so in-love with my cats. Each and every. And they were all different, Wishes, Bella, Lotus and now Molly. They all taught me something, and Molly teaches me something. And I happen to love wild animals… critters. Maybe because I was a wild girl when I was growing up, very rebellious… I just think, wow, don’t let anyone hurt you… or abuse you or catch you… keep running wild. Keep running…
What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
I didn’t expect to love being in the country when I married Ken. Thirty plus years now. I was a city girl, through and through. The first time he asked me to grab some tomatoes, I went out to the market and when I came back, he said… babe, we grow ‘em, they’re in the garden. I didn’t expect to be happy here, but it’s mighty gorgeous and beautiful and filled with magic. And good friends. Lots of good friends.
Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?
Singing in the car and dancing anywhere. If there is a song that comes on in the supermarket that gets my juices pumping, yeah, I’ll dance down the aisle.
What are your hopes for yourself?
That I never lose my sense of humor or my deep passion for what’s right – what’s just, what’s fair and good and decent, and to always champion and lift the women in my life, and the good men – there are many good men, and I will champion them.
What’s a kindness that changed your life?
Melissa Giberson and Vivian Georgousis, two amazing women, they took such good care of me when Ken was so very sick recently and in the hospital. That really cracked my heart open. An unexpected kindness that turned my fear into faith – faith for humanity.
What’s a guiding force in your life?
A few things. My Buddhist practice, been practicing Buddhism for almost 50 years now and that sustains my heart and soul, and the words that my dad told me when I dropped out of High School and left home when I was a young girl - he said, I can’t make your mistakes for you – those words have been my guidepost for all these years. I can’t make your mistakes for you. The power of that, those seven words. But I think a real guiding force in my life is to be kind. To offer a shoulder, a hand, to be generous. To be inclusive… that’s a big force in my life. And to keep loving better.
Great questions! More depth than meets the eye.
“What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?” ❤️
Pure Amy. ♥️ What a lovely way to start the week. Thanks to you both!