My literary representative, Newson Wallwork Media, is currently looking for a publisher for Coming Up Short – A Small Person's Guide To A Tall World.
I am 5'2''. I am also a journalist. Fortunately, my height – or lack thereof – has given me plenty to write about.
From the hilarious to the tragic, Coming Up Short is an insight into quite how different the world looks from up high. From nearly falling out of rollercoasters and go-karts as a child, to being used as an arm-rest at work and attempting online dating, it tells the story of how strange and wonderful being small is in a world designed for, and run by, tall people.
But this is about more than just my experience. It's about answering the question: do we still look down on short people? The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence suggests we do.
Height is one of the few factors you can rely on when predicting who wins an election. Who becomes chief executive. Who gets a job in the first place. Who performs better at school. Who finds it easier to make friends. Who women express a romantic interest in. How anxious someone feels in social situations.
The taller candidate wins presidential elections two thirds of the time. The bigger the height margin, the greater the chance of winning.
More than half of US CEOs stand above six feet tall. A quarter of these top dogs are over six-feet two inches, at least six times the proportion in the US population as a whole. The benefit of an extra inch in height is an $800 increase in annual earnings, research suggests.
From a young age, taller children achieve more academically than their shorter peers and make friends easier. In adulthood, controlled studies show that companies are more likely to hire taller people with the same qualifications, and a reduction in height increases the negative impression we think others would hold of us.
When it comes to relationships, the man is taller than the woman in 92.5 per cent of couples – far more than would be predicted by chance.
Through my lived experience, I bring to life what those numbers mean in real life, and will make you question whether we do really all stand equal.
Coming Up Short is a witty, biting personal memoir of what it's like to be a short person in a world tailored to the tall, a memoir of lived experience feeling at odds with your own height, backed up with the latest scientific research.
In the way it marshals data to illustrate an underreported issue, Coming Up Short could be seen as comparable to Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez; there will be few other places that gather together quite this wealth of research on the topic of height.
There are a few existing works around the science of height, notably Size Matters by Stephen S. Hall, but these date back decades and have a slant that it almost entirely scientific and research based, where Coming Up Short leans heavily on anecdotes and narrative storytelling.
Other works such as Almost 5'4" by Isobella Jade and Walking Tall When You're Not Tall At All by John Schwartz appear to be purely memoirs of the individuals’ experience, and lack the data and research nuggets that makes the topic so fascinating.
The likes of The Short Book by Zachary Kanin and I'd Rather Be Short by Becky Murphy are overtly humorous by nature, but unlike Coming Up Short, these could better be described as illustrated comics.
Preliminary research suggests there are no recent works that combine the scientific exploration of height differences with a humorous, personal take on the issues at hand, and none that have actually been written by a short individual.
About The Author
Justin Cash is online editor at financial publisher Dow Jones. His work has featured in publications ranging from The Financial Times, The New Statesman, and The Independent, to CityAM and The Huffington Post. Cash graduated with a 2.1 in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Durham University and has a masters in Investigative Journalism from City University, London. He is also quite small.
Social Media Presence
Twitter: 3,200 followers
LinkedIn: circa 3,000 connections
Chapter Outline
Introduction
A near-death experience at a theme park after a young Cash tries to cheat a height barrier sets the stage for the book to come. Briefly drawing on the overarching data, Cash asks whether his height has made a difference during his life, and sets out his plan to prove that short people are indeed treated differently in a host of different ways.
Childhood, friends, and everyday obstacles
From having his pencil case graffitied with height jokes, to disbelieving bouncers at nightclubs, Cash charts how his own upbringing was defined by his height, before discussing the statistics on how taller children tend to perform better at school, and have improved socio-economic outcomes that last into later life.
Jobs and politics
There is an income and representation gap between the tall and the short in the worlds of business and government. Cash runs through the evidence, while reflecting on how people haven’t believed he was a manager at work because of his size, and how he has seen short people like him struggle to assert their authority in the workplace.
Sports
Being short is not all bad news, professionally speaking. There are actually glimmers of hope in the world of sports. From 5’3’’ players making it to the NBA, to the average height of marathon winners decreasing in recent years, Cash talks through where size does and doesn’t matter in an athletic context, and his own trials and tribulations on the sports field, like being beaten by a tennis coach playing on his knees.
Relationships
Dating apps have changed romance beyond recognition. But they contain a host of bear traps for short people. Macth.com didn’t even offer a low enough height option when Cash tried to sign up. You won’t be shocked to hear that the evidence suggests we are fans of a relative height gap between lovers. This chapter runs through what science can tell us about why that is, looking to the animal kingdom for examples of how small individuals can still get a foothold in the mating game.
Comedy
When a short person tells a joke, are we laughing at them, or with them? The research suggests we respond better to taller comedians. Cash takes a look back at his time performing on the open mic circuit, and what did and didn’t work when it came to poking fun at his height.
Health
If you’re a short person, there’s some good news on the health front. You’re probably less likely to develop some forms of cancer and you’re likely to live longer than your taller peers too. But does that compensate for the greater propensity for short people to develop mental health problems? Cash also looks at the consequences of paying tens of thousands of pounds to have your legs broken and stretched again, and what would compel short people to go through such a gruelling ordeal.
Virtual world, same rules
In the virtual world of lockdown, the argument goes, no one can see our differences, including our height. Going through an online job interview during the pandemic leads Cash to consider wealth of evidence that suggests clues we leave in the virtual world like our voice and avatars will mean that short people will continue to lag behind their taller peers, even if our social and professional lives do move online to a greater degree.
If you might be interested in publishing the work, or have any further questions, do reach out to chris@newsonwallwork.com.