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Lidia Yuknavitch Celebrates Misfits in Viral TED Talk

The Portland author has been racking up views with a moving TED talk about being a misfit and overcoming obstacles.

By Fiona McCann May 25, 2016

Portland writer Lidia Yuknavitch has been blowing up the Internet with a TED talk on being a misfit. The author of The Chronology of Water and most recently The Small Backs of Children gave her talk last February, but the video didn’t go online until this week. Within 24 hours, the video had racked up over 150,000 views, and has since surpassed 200,000.

Yuknavitch’s talk—praised by fellow writer Mitchell Jackson as “one of the best talks of the whole conference"—sees her speak in praise of misfits, or people who “missed fitting in,” highlighting her own rocky path toward self-acceptance.

“Even at the moment of your failure, right there, you are beautiful,” she says to all misfits. “You don’t know it yet, but you have the ability to reinvent yourself endlessly. That’s your beauty.”

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