I have always lived in the Gothic castle of my body and brain. Before I was a hysterical woman, I was a hysterical child.

Read an excerpt from ‘Heads of the Colored People,’ by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, winner of a 2019 Whiting Award for fiction.

  Google “stock images of women with excruciating menstrual cramps,” “women having nervous breakdowns,” “women on hospital gurneys.” Make several of the women black even though your Google search will not produce these results. Str…