Period 40: Run, hide, fight
At the start of every semester, my campus sends around a reminder to go over with students what to do in the event of a campus shooter. Our options are Run-...
Period 39: How to think not what to do
This week for my Feminist Science seminar we read Michelle Murphy’s work on pollution and the alterlife, and Jamie Haverkamp’s work on love-care-response as...
Period 38: To transform, to be transformed
I spent hours this week reading names of the dead. Out on the quad, on sunny, gorgeous fall days, we stood at various intersections with four binders full of...
Period 37: I hate tampons (derogatory)
I hate tampons. No, really. I hate them. I tend to be menstrual product agnostic in that I think people need to use whatever works best for them given their...
Period 36: It's complicated
So it’s been a while – between activism, parenting, book writing, and professoring it’s been hard to prioritize the newsletter. Here and on Bluesky, I feel...
Period 35: Reckoning with menstrual pain – and a note on “biological sex”
As a young person, when my periods became intensely painful, my mother introduced me to prescription strength doses of ibuprofen. I would take 800-1000...
Period 34: Menstrualsplaining
How have I gotten thirty-four issues into this newsletter and not done a basic menstrual cycle explainer? My whole book is kind of like a menstrual cycle...
Period 33: Perimenopause can perimeno-suck it
First, big news! Buttondown now has commenting functionality! You can comment on these newsletters to your heart’s content – a great way to meet like-minded...
Period 32: Hostile sexism and beliefs about menstruating people
Babies are on my mind right now – over the last few months I’ve interviewed a number of people who have had miscarriages or stillbirths. There are elements...
Period 31: Retraumatization versus remembering
I have just finished reading (listening to on audio via LibroFM, actually) Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger (these are regular links not affiliate links). I think...
Period 30: A long overdue newsletter, must be my cycle-driven white matter microstructure changes
Phew, I’m back! I’m sure you missed me. I’m desperately trying to finish three chapters of the book simultaneously (which is a terrible idea by the way)...
Period 29: Join me in Chicago!
A few book-related things to get out of the way first My final book launch event is next Friday September 22nd at the amazing Women and Children First...
Period 28: The Tardis is my therapy
In the last two weeks, covid has hit our house twice (based on the timing of infection, my spouse got it while teaching and, while testing negative during...
Period 27 Miscarriages and heat
It’s the first week of classes, but not for me! I’m on teaching leave this year to focus both on some administrative work for the university and to write my...
Period 26: Journalists - stop saying that menstrual products are tested with saline and please do some reporting
Ok, sidebar newsletter. Share this one, please. Last week for the weird period fact I shared a recent paper that looked at menstrual product...
Period 25: Ultimate menstrual frisbee
I was on Taboo Science Podcast this week talking about PERIOD (which, by the way, if you’ve read it, would you consider leaving a rating or review on...
Period 24: the turning point at which these newsletters slowly turn into very long weird period facts
We’re finally home after a perhaps too-long vacation. It was good to see family, and if I could have stayed with my sister and her kids another month I...
Period 23: Getting insomnia just in time for this Cape Cod book event
I’m still on vacation but this week is the not-vacation vacation, meaning we put our youngest in camp so we could actually work during the day. My partner...
Period 22: 100 tampons and a discount code
I’ve been writing a lot for the last month… just not newsletters. I got about 35,000 words deep into my next book, which is on pregnancy loss. It turns out...
Period 21: Natural born killers
I was on Slate’s podcast The Waves this week – which was such a treat because I’m a big fan! Between being on The Waves and This Podcast Will Kill You I’ve...