Overview

 Chopsy is a memoir like no other – a gut-wrenchingly powerful, yet frequently funny account of a life spent defying  the prejudice and inequality faced by working-class women.  Maya Jordan’s ambition and resilience was born in the library and nourished by the Open University – through poverty, early motherhood, precarious housing, caring responsibilities and chronic disability – to a point where she finally seized her right to write. 'Funny as hell and full of fight. Maya’s voice is the real deal' Daisy May Cooper 'A curse on being ordinary! Wrong is not her name. Her name is Maya Jordan. She is a noisy woman and we should fear her' Michael Sheen

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9780715656136

Table of Contents

Reviews

'If you’ve ever cringed at yet another wildly inaccurate representation of your working-class childhood, if your body doesn’t conform to the absurd standards that social media demands of our health and ability – especially as we age, if you know in your very bones that we do not live in a meritocracy now and we never have, and if love and grief and despair and possibility all make sense to you – then you want to read this' Stella Duffy, author of The Hidden Room ‘Refusing to be defined by others, Chopsy reclaims the right to tell our own stories, in our own words and on our own terms. Inclusive, insightful and inspiring, it embraces, challenges, and refuses to look away’ Victoria Bennett, author All My Wild Mothers, and curator of the Wild Women Writers’ Salons 'A triumphant success story about clearing a path for yourself and finding the freedom, words, and perhaps courage in mid-life to put pen to paper' Claire Malcolm, New Writing North 'Maya Jordan just doesn’t know her place… thank heaven for that. This book is bloody marvellous! A story for all of us ""difficult"" women. So much resonates with the lives of the women I’ve known and worked with, and my own too' Linda Gask, author of Out of Her Mind: How We Are Failing Women's Mental Health and What Must Change 'Thank god for Maya Jordan. And thank god for this book' Jennifer Cox, author of Women Are Angry

‘If you’ve ever cringed at yet another wildly inaccurate representation of your working-class childhood, if your body doesn’t conform to the absurd standards that social media demands of our health and ability – especially as we age, if you understand that misogyny and classism are messy and complicated and that they screw up all of us, if the phrase “hard-working families” makes you despair, if you were ever told “that’s for other people, not for you”, if you know in your very bones that we do not live in a meritocracy now and we never have, and if love and grief and despair and possibility all make sense to you – then you want to read this. Because while Maya’s story of her life is neither yours nor mine, there will be enough resonances for you to shout “YES, THIS!”, and in feeling seen and heard you will find some energy for today and maybe even tomorrow. (And if none of those things apply to you, then please read this book so that you too can be the change.)’ Stella Duffy

'If you’ve ever cringed at yet another wildly inaccurate representation of your working-class childhood, if your body doesn’t conform to the absurd standards that social media demands of our health and ability – especially as we age, if you understand that misogyny and classism are messy and complicated and that they screw up all of us, if the phrase “hard-working families” makes you despair, if you were ever told “that’s for other people, not for you”, if you know in your very bones that we do not live in a meritocracy now and we never have, and if love and grief and despair and possibility all make sense to you – then you want to read this. Because while Maya’s story of her life is neither yours nor mine, there will be enough resonances for you to shout “YES, THIS!”, and in feeling seen and heard you will find some energy for today and maybe even tomorrow. (And if none of those things apply to you, then please read this book so that you too can be the change.)' Stella Duffy

Author Information

Maya Jordan was selected by A Writing Chance, a programme launched by actor and writer Michael Sheen with New Writing North, to support working-class and under-represented writers. Her work has been performed by Sheen for BBC Radio Wales’s Margins to Mainstream and was highlighted by him in a recent TEDx Talk Levelling the Cultural Playing Field. 

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