Learning Cixous’ Écriture Féminine Through the Flow of Words and Blood

Learning Cixous’ écriture féminine as critical autoethnography through the flow of words and blood is an intimate response to the relationship I have with Cixous’ writing when I am menstruating. Periods have always been difficult for me—physically painful but also a point of contention as menstruating always confronts me with my womanhood—another subject with which I have many problems. Yet since reading Cixous I have been compelled to explore the link between my periods and my writing. Inspired by Cixous’ attention to, in particular, blood in her work and her “School of the Dead,” I trace my cycle here using the moon phases—an ancient feminine ritual. Beginning with the date I started rewriting this chapter, I follow that month’s lunar period with some concluding words written on the following month’s full moon.