& The Midnight Heart Blog
I had an essay out last month on The Manifest Station titled 'Fuck Self-help.' It's about all the women I know who have come to me for advice on whether their relationship is abusive, and it also tells something about my own experience of intimate partner violence. What the past has taught me is that [...]
“If we could perceive death as a part of pregnancy, we might just take women more seriously.” These words are taken from a recent article on ‘Mothers as Makers of Death,’ published by Claudia Dey in the Paris Review, in which she affirms a darker alternative to the Hallmark version of motherhood. Mary Shelley also [...]
I was recently really pleased to receive an Affordable Learning Exchange grant to revamp my course 'Sexuality and Violence.' Here's how it looks for next semester. ----- Sexuality Studies 5620: Sexuality and Violence Tuesday / Thursday 2.20pm – 3.40pm Ohio State University Spring 2019 ZoëBrigley Thompson thompson.3022@osu.edu Figure 1: Change Mural by Krystal Roig-Palmer, [...]
I have been thinking and writing about the Welsh legend of Branwen recently, in this micro-chapbook out with the Poetry Annals, Blind Horse Elegy (cover image by Victoria Brookland), and in the title poem itself which was a runner up in the Hopper Poetry Prize. When I think of the story of Branwen, I think of [...]
The first time I had a miscarriage, it was "missed." Sometimes they call it a silent miscarriage, because there are no symptoms. The only time you find out is when you lie back to have the ultrasound, but instead of a baby, nothing is there. Though my body and mind missed the miscarriage when it [...]
I have always loved this quotation from Sylvia Plath’s Johnny Panic and The Bible of Dreams: “So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them." I love this box image. I’m sure that the image was very personal [...]
On the summer solstice two years ago, there was a big, beautiful supermoon. It was 2016 – pre-election, pre-Trump. That night, I woke up for no obvious reason, and downstairs I noticed a strange light coming through the glass doors. The moon was up, honey colored, clouds passing in long fingers across its face. I [...]
I always know when I have been stretching myself too thin with work and writing because I become Jane Craig in broadcast news. You know the scene: she finishes her phone conversation, sits quietly on the bed, and then cries long, loudly, noisily before going on with her day as usual. Who doesn't wish for [...]
I was thinking recently about parenting and writing again. This week has been a dizzy whirl of kids' activities at the end of semester. Yesterday, I went into Kindergarten, and did some activities with the kids for the end of year party. We were studying Hawaii, its culture, myths, and incredible geology. The children were [...]
[This talk was given on March 3rd 2018 at a talk for a Heforshe event at the Ohio State University.] I want to start by quoting a short poem by the British author Jane Commane. The poem is called ‘Landmarks’ and it describes the threat of violence in our everyday spaces, asks how or why [...]
