Rescheduled: Our Red Book
March 28, 2023
Bard Theater and Performance Department, Written Arts, and the OSUN Center for Human Rights & the Arts at Bard present:
A reading of Our Red Book, a collection of essays, oral histories, and artworks about periods across all stages of life, gathered by the New York Times best-selling author Rachel Kauder Nalebuff.
“Powerful…. Bold and candid, these missives go a long way in breaking through what one contributor calls ‘the taboo of bleeding.’”—Publishers Weekly.
This event will include a panel discussion amongst Rachel Kauder Nalebuff and contributing writers Somah Haaland, Victoria Law, and Daaimah Mubashshir.
Copies of the book will be available for sale in the lobby from Oblong Books.
About the Book
After hearing a harrowing coming-of-age story from her great aunt, Rachel Kauder Nalebuff started gathering stories about menstruation in her family that had never been told. What began as an oral history project quickly snowballed: Rachel heard from family and friends, and then from strangers—writers, experts, community leaders, activists, young people, and other visionaries—about the most intimate physical transformations in their lives.
Our Red Book takes us through stories of first periods, last periods, missing periods, and everything about bleeding that people wish they had been told. Weaving together powerful voices—from teenagers, midwives, Indigenous scholars, Olympic athletes, incarcerated writers, disoriented fathers, elected leaders who fought to make period products free, friends transitioning genders, grandmothers, and lovers—the book invites us on a collective journey of growth and change, with Rachel’s own voice as a guide.
The result is a people’s history of menstruation, told through an array of perspectives and identities that span the globe. Gathered over twenty years, the collection takes stock of our shifting relationships to family, cultural inheritance, gender, aging, and liberation.
Panelists
Rachel Kauder Nalebuff is a writer working at the intersection of oral history, performance, and public health. Her newest book is Our Red Book (Simon & Schuster, 2022). She is the author of Stages: on Dying, Working, and Feeling (Thick Press, 2020); coeditor of The Feminist Utopia Project (Feminist Press, 2015); and the editor of the New York Times bestselling My Little Red Book (Twelve Books, 2009). She teaches nonfiction writing at Yale University.
Somah Haaland is a queer Indigenous artist and community organizer from the Pueblos of Laguna and Jemez in New Mexico who currently resides in New York City.
Victoria Law is a freelance journalist and author focusing on women’s incarceration. Her books include Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reform, and “Prisons Make Us Safer” & 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration. You can find more of her work at victorialaw.net.
Daaimah Mubashshir is Bard’s Playwright-in-Residence. Her work has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, and 3 Hole Press. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the 2021 PlayCo Residency for Black Women Theatre Makers; 2020–22 WP Theater Lab Fellowship; 2019-22 Core Writer Fellowship (Playwrights Center, Minnesota), an Audrey Residency (New Georges), MacDowell Fellowship, and Foundation of Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
Plan Your Visit
Eat & Stay
Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts.
Eat & StayDirections
Bard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
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