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Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos is the author of five books, including the national bestselling essay collection, GIRLHOOD, which has been translated into ten languages and won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Her craft book, BODY WORK (2022), was also a national bestseller and an LA Times Bestseller. A new memoir, The Dry Season, was published by Alfred. A. Knopf in June 2025. The recipient of fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Library, MacDowell, the Bogliasco Foundation, the Black Mountain Institute, LAMBDA Literary, the American Library in Paris, and others, Melissa's work has appeared in publications including The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Best American Essays, The Best American Food and Travel Writing, Granta, The Believer, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Elle, and Vogue. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is the Roy J. Carver Professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program. She lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly. (Source: Author's Website)

Read more on Open Library

Books8

The Dry Season

The Dry Season

2025
Brick: A Literary Journal, Summer 2025

Brick: A Literary Journal, Summer 2025

2025

with Orly Zebak

Mita on olla tytto

Mita on olla tytto

2023
Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative

Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative

2022
Girlhood

Girlhood

2021
Abandon Me: Memoirs

Abandon Me: Memoirs

2017
Whip Smart: The True Story of a Secret Life

Whip Smart: The True Story of a Secret Life

2011
Whip Smart: A Memoir

Whip Smart: A Memoir

2010

Collections4

The Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth from the Margins

The Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth from the Margins

2023
Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement

Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement

2019
Call My Name

Call My Name

2017
The Beautiful Anthology

The Beautiful Anthology

2012

Single issues1

McSweeney's #61

McSweeney's #61

2020