RKN

Selected by the San Francisco Chronicle as a best book of 2022!

Selected by the American Library Association for the Rise: A Feminist Book Project for Ages 0-18 2024 Booklist!

Nalebuff interjects frequently with commentary and anecdotes, artfully linking stories together. Bold and candid, these missives go a long way in breaking through what one contributor calls "the taboo of bleeding"—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Eye-opening, provocative, and emotionally resonant. The factors that shroud menstruation in secrecy, and give rise to shame and embarrassment, are deconstructed, making Our Red Book instructive as a primer for young people. What’s more, trans narratives and narratives from non-western writers enhance and expand readers’ understanding of the ways periods are treated and experienced. This diversity is part of what makes Our Red Book so important. Our Red Book goes beyond horror stories to envision a freer, more accepting society.—The Progressive

A vibrant collection of stories evoking joy, dread, loss, and celebration that will resonate with many—Library Journal

Interview with Catherine Shen for NPR’s Where We Live!
Interview with Ali Muldrow for A Public Affair on WORT.FM!
Interview with Marrie Stone for Writers on Writing!
Interview with Dr. Joe Sirven for What’s Health Got to Do With? It on WJCT!
Interview with contributor Sofiya Moore and Babz Rawls Ivy on WNHH Radio!
Interview for the Los Angeles Review of Books

Read excerpts from the book, featured in The Guardian! Harper’s! The Boston Globe!

Photos from reading & writing workshop hosted by the DC Public Library. For this event, we hosted a reading at the main MLK branch and created a public display of local stories at the Mount Pleasant Library branch. Our “bleeding wall” was exhibited for a month by the main entrance of the library (Washington DC, April, 2023) . Photos from launch events at McNally Jackson Seaport (NYC, Nov 2, 2022), The Institute Library (New Haven, CT, Nov 5, 2022), and Skylight Books (Los Angeles, Nov 11, 2022). Photos by Elana Engelman-Lado, Luciana McClure & Sherman Chen.

Dear friends,

I’m pleased to tell you about Our Red Book, which is coming out this November from Simon & Schuster (US) and Virago (UK).

I’ve been working on Our Red Book, in one way or another, since I was a teenager. It began when, in an attempt to comfort me after my own recent “embarrassing” first period, my great aunt Nina told me a story about how she’d gotten her first period while on a train, fleeing for her life from Nazi-occupied Poland. As she told me her story, the gap between us began to shift. I felt my family’s history in a new way. For many years after, I wondered what other intimate histories ought to be shared to deepen our understanding of where we come from. I began by gathering oral histories in my family. Everyone I talked to pointed me to someone else—their friend, their teacher, their beautician. An initial gathering of stories was published in 2009 as My Little Red Book. That book became a New York Times bestseller.

Since that book’s release, I’ve continued to follow a trail of stories, which have inspired a new and expanded collection of essays and oral histories that is now Our Red Book. The book explores first periods, last periods, missing periods; bleeding after birth; bleeding behind bars; bleeding while transitioning genders; talking openly and honestly with children, friends, and lovers about periods; a spiritual dimension of menstruation; and the many mysterious patterns in the menstrual cycle that scientists have yet to fully understand…basically, all the shit that no one tells you. In between stories, I offer short reflections.

Editing this book has altered me. These stories have seeped into my own memoryscape and healed old wounds. I’ve been expanded by the way these essays expose misogyny at its root source and offer new language. My hope is that this chorus of almost 100 voices gives you a glimpse into an often untold and profound realm of our human experience.

You can stay tuned here for news about the book and launch events.

Rachel

EVENTS

Mt. Pleasant Neighborhood Library, Washington D.C.
Thursday, April 13, 2023
✨Bleeding and Being✨
A reading and writing workshop

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library - Central D.C. Library.
Saturday, April 15, 2023
✨ Reading & Community Fair✨