The Process of Loving Your Period with Alexandria King

Photos by Brette Little

Alexandria King’s process of writing her first book is a story of sharing the important but often uncomfortable information to the next generation. Her book, The Moon In You: A Period Love Book For Girls, empowers preteen girls to get comfortable with their periods and bodies, intending to transform “puberty from awkward to awe-inspiring.” It features bright, bold, and culturally diverse illustrations by Alexandria’s daughter, Giselle Vriesen. The book represents a much-needed voice in how we discuss the changing bodies of female-identifying youth.

Before coming to Salt Spring Island, Alexandria ran a women’s sexuality magazine in Toronto. The intention of the magazine was to bring sensuality into sexuality. The magazine helped created space for “different cultures, different colours of people, different body types, and different experiences” by encouraging sexuality through art.

*The Moon In You: A Period Love Book For Girls*: Transforming puberty from awkward to awe-inspiring.

For the book, The Moon in You, the initial inspiration came when her daughter was 11 and she wanted to share the importance of bringing love to your own body, and explaining things simply before it became convoluted from external input. Alexandria created an eight-page brochure for her daughter to help explain the puberty process. That was the foundation block that started building out as a book.

As with all things creative, the journey is never straightforward, and Alexandria’s path to making this book a reality involved multiple ways of (un)learning and healing. This included the incredibly challenging work of healing from sexual trauma, doing womb work, and learning alternatives from the white supremacy in western medicine. At the same time, Alexandria and her daughter, Giselle, learned more about their shared ancestry. All these combined forces allowed Alexandria to write what she needed from the heart to help prepare her daughter for the changes about to come. Giselle became a collaborator on the book as the illustrator, creating many full-colour drawings of everything from anatomy to botany. Alexandria says that “fear is just lack of information,” and for her own daughter, and the daughters of many others, The Moon in You offers the information, guidance, and wisdom needed to embrace a time of great physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation.