Chella Quint (click her name for her home page) writes and edits period blogs, zines, and books for menstruators and non-menstruators of all ages, cultures and genders, and has done for the past ten years! She is a comedy writer, performer, public engager and education consultant originally from New York who now lives in Sheffield, England. She is the Sheffield Docfest 2013 Specialist Factual New Talent Pitch winner (and made a short film about the history of menstruation with Mandrake Films and the Open University). She recently completed a Master’s Degree in Education, focusing on femcare ads, media literacy, and changing attitudes to menstruation in secondary education. Her dissertation, Period Positive Schools, led her to set up #periodpositive – a clearinghouse for accurate and taboo-busting menstruation education resources and a benchmark for likeminded organisations locally and globally in an accompanying campaign and website. She invites you to use #periodpositive and @periodpositive on Twitter and end leakage fear by agreeing to download your own wearable stain! A lot of her education and engagement work is in science communication, sex and relationships education, human rights and social justice, conflict resolution, health promotion and media literacy. Chella dabbles in spoken word performance in her free time, and is the Sheffield Off the Shelf Festival slam champion 2014. Her prose poem, To The Leaking Girl, appeared in the Women’s Studies interdisciplinary journal special issue: Representations of the Menstrual Cycle, and her comedy activism has been extensively cited in New Blood: Third-Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation and less extensively in Reclaiming the F Word and a number of US university curriculua. Her zine covers and design work have been featured in Time Out London, Plan B, Stranded magazine, and the book Fanzines. Chella has contributed to Ms. Magazine blog, Elevate Difference (which was formerly Feminist Review), Girlfuture, Sadie Magazine, Subtext Magazine, and the Guardian. Chella’s live work includes performances of It’s Not You. I Just Need Space. (interplanetary letters of love and rejection), at venues around the UK, annual Adventures in Menstruating Roadshows, public speaking engagements, science communication, and sketch- and improv-based comedy when she’s got some free time, with her improv troupe for women and queers, Quimprov. You can email Chella at chella quint at gmail dot com or send post to:
She’d particularly welcome an email if you (in no particular order):
- are involved in a similarly-themed project or are interested in this one and want to chat or collaborate
- would like to publish something she’s written, request reprint permission, or commission some writing
- would like to book her to speak, perform, lead a workshop or advise on policy
- have something to contribute to the zine (writing, art, interview, ad analysis)
- would like to submit a menstrually-themed product, performance or publication for product testing or review
- distro the zines already or want to do so in the future
- are researching attitudes toward menstruation, advertising or menstrual activism or the comedy inherent therein
Adventures in Menstruating 