Catherine Gigante-Brown

Catherine Gigante-Brown

Bio

Catherine Gigante-Brown is a freelance writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Her works have appeared in Time Out New York, Essence and Seventeen. She co-wrote two biographies for Prometheus Books and her short stories appear in fiction anthologies. Catherine’s first novel, The El, is available from Volossal Publishing. You can learn more about her on her website.

Catherine Gigante-Brown Articles

My Love/Hate Relationship With Makeup

Makeup and I have always had a love/hate relationship: I love it; it hates me.

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David with his first Mohawk

In Praise Of The Mohawk

"Sometimes David wore his hair spiked like a cockscomb. Others, he wore it feathery like a baby chick. He wore his Mohawk to summer camp (exchanging encouraging head chucks with another older camper who sported one, too) and even to Vacation Bible School—no judgment there."

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5 Reasons Why I Can't Stand Shakespeare

The hell with his elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases. Iambic pentameter is cruel and unusual punishment.

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Alexa: Friend? Foe?

8 Ways Amazon Echo (AKA Alexa) Isn't All She's Cracked Up To Be

Alexa is like a nosy neighbor: She’s always listening. That’s how she can respond when you ask her to do something. So, when you’re getting busy on the kitchen counter — Alexa’s listening. When you’re telling Capital One the last four digits of your SSN — Alexa’s listening. And who knows who else is.

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Image: NY Post

Love, Candice: A Farewell to Candida Royalle

Candida Royalle pretty much invented couples erotica. She made it socially-acceptable. Respectable. The women in her films looked like real women and had real, comfortable female bodies. And her movies actually had stories. Good stories. She hired her friends—adult legends like Annie Sprinkle, Veronicas Hart and Vera, and Gloria Leonard — to create Femme films too.

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Acupuncture Addict

TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) has been around for at least five centuries –– there’s got to be something to it.

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Having someone steal my cancer history and co-opt it...is unbelievably violating.

Someone Plagiarized My Cancer Story

Having someone steal my cancer history and co-opt it for their first-person Facebook blog is unbelievably violating. Somehow, it feels almost as invasive as my mastectomy.

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There are surprisingly few stock photos of women in thongs with "I <3 NY" painted on their butt cheeks.

Tatas In Times Square: NYC Tells Its Desnudas To Cover Up

The Daily News quoted one painted lady as saying, “People come up to us sometimes and say what we do is disgusting,” she said. “But what is disgusting about the female body? They shield their kids sometimes, and I think, ‘Kids come from the female body.’”

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Statue at the Zen Buddhist Monastery, Upstate, NY

My Wild and Crazy Zen Retreat Adventure

At first, I felt like an abandoned ten-year-old, dropped off at a remote summer camp—with the extra added attraction of no cell phone reception or Wi-Fi. I thought the hardest part of the weekend was going to be picking out a robe. Boy, was I wrong!

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