Catherine Gigante-Brown

At the New York City release party for Dayna Kurtz’ latest, Rise and Fall, my friend Nadia leaned over to me and whispered, “Why the fuck

Re-imagining the cervix, preserving the earth, facing breast cancer a whole new way…Annie Sprinkle’s wisdom abounds. “Life is a performance art piece,” she said...

The santero sent us off with a shopping list of ite

A new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation on mammograms ensures more women will die of breast cancer.

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!

BCBs are loud and proud and refuse to go down easy. And quietly. We have things to say. We have things to teach. We still have life to live. And damn it, we are and we will. With one breast. With no breasts. With reconstruction surgery.

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.

I try. I really do. But whenever I attempt to embrace my husband Peter’s Cuban culture, I always screw up.

We’ve pieced ourselves back together in a patchwork quilt of ragged emotions. The aftermath of 9/11 wasn’t easy for us, yet it was much easier than for some. People standing 50 feet away from Peter didn’t come home that night; he did.

Even when I explained to my son that he came from a long line of short people, it didn’t help. David still felt bad about being small. How could a five-year-old possibly get this type of size-shaming message? From other people, mostly insensitive adults. They gave him the idea that bigger was somehow better.