Bloom: Letters on Girlhood
Bloom: Letters on Girlhood is a timely memoir exploring how societal expectations shape identity, and how we can continue, at any age, to release the past.
By Nicole Breit & Claire Sicherman
Published by Caitlin Press, 2025
Paperback : 9781773861692, September 2025
Caitlin Press
Amazon Canada
Indigo
A raw, searching and intimate memoir, Bloom: Letters on Girlhood is a conversation between two acclaimed writers about silence and shame and what it means to come of age as young women.
Over the course of two and a half years, authors Claire Sicherman (Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation) and Nicole Breit, an award-winning poet and essayist, exchanged letters chronicling their coming-of-age in the suburbs of late 1980s Vancouver.
Bloom: Letters on Girlhood is a candid memoir-in-letters in which Claire and Nicole explore the awkwardness and confusion of adolescence, delving into everything from periods, first bras and body hair to desire, sexuality and consent. As they reflect on their silent struggles as girls, women and mothers from the perspective of mid-life, the true impact of patriarchy and misogyny on their lives becomes increasingly apparent.
With unflinching honesty and insight, Bloom is a timely memoir exploring how societal expectations shape identity, and how we can continue, at any age, to release the past. Written by two feminist authors from underrepresented communities (Claire is a Jewish woman and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors; Nicole is a queer, neurodivergent writer), this memoir-in-letters will resonate with anyone who has ever asked themselves: Who was I taught to be? And who do I want to become?