Plot Twists In Store (washingtonpost.com)

By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 12, 2005; Page C01

BROOKLYN, N.Y.

Standing on a fashion show catwalk, Wendy Shanker is warming up a crowd that has come for an in-store glimpse of Macy's latest outfits for spring. At 5 feet 7 and 220 pounds, Shanker is not the sort of woman you typically associate with models or glamour or capri pants. She doesn't sound like one either.

"A lot of people don't like the word 'fat,' " she says into a microphone, on a makeshift runway set up in the women's department. "I'm fat. It doesn't describe who I am. I'm the same as everybody else. I just wear bigger pants."

"We're doing like a five- or six-city tour," says Wendy Shanker, author of "The Fat Girl's Guide to Life," of the dual book tour-Macy's plus-size fashion show, which arrives at Arlington at 2 p.m. today. (Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post)

This gets a chuckle from the audience, many of whom are just as big, or bigger. This is a plus-size fashion show, with models from size 14 on up. But this event is about more than just clothing in very generous proportions. It's also, weirdly enough, a book party, and Shanker is an author, doing what a woman has to do today to get her book sold.

Remainder of article at Washington Post linked by header.