Karen Houppert was a contributing writer at the Washington Post Magazine for many years. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Newsday, the New York Times, Mother Jones, the Village Voice, Salon, and many other publications. She is the author of three books: Chasing Gideon: The Elusive Quest for Poor People’s Justice (The New Press); Home Fires Burning: Married to the Military—for Better or Worse; and The Curse: Confronting the Last Taboo, Menstruation. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where she teaches in the MA in Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University and is an assistant professor at Morgan State University.