2024 Advocate
BIO: Sonya Renee Taylor is a New York Times best-selling author, world-renowned activist and thought leader on racial justice and transformational change, international award-winning poet, and founder of The Body Is Not an Apology movement.
Sonya is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestseller The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love (1st and 2nd editions), Your Body Is Not an Apology Workbook, Celebrate Your Body (and Its Changes, Too!), poetry collection A Little Truth on Your Shirt, The Book of Radical Answers (That I Know You Already Know) (Dial Press 2023), The Journal of Radical Permission co-authored with adrienne maree brown, and co-editor with the late Cat Pausé of The Routledge International Handbook of Fat Studies. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors over the past two decades, from her National Individual Poetry Slam Championship award in 2004 to her 2016 invitation by the Obama administration to participate in the White House Forum on LGBT and Disability Issues. More recently, she served as an inaugural Edmund Hillary Fellow in Aotearoa (New Zealand) from 2017-2020.
Sonya continues to travel and share her insights globally as a highly sought-after international speaker, artist, and educator on issues of radical permission, radical self-love, social justice, and personal and global transformation.