About this item
Memoir meets craft masterclass in this "daring, honest, psychologically insightful" exploration of how we think and write about intimate experiences - "a must read for anybody shoving a pen across paper or staring into a screen or a past" (Mary Karr) In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and master class, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the questions which run through it.How might we go about capturing on the page the relationships that have formed us How do we write about our bodies, their desires and traumas What does it mean for an author's way of writing, or living, to be dismissed as "navel-gazing" - or else hailed as "so brave, so raw" And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belongDrawing on her own path from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor - via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia - Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence.
About the Author
Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir, Whip Smart (St. Martin's Press 2010) , and the essay collection, Abandon Me (Bloomsbury 2017) , which was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, a Publishing Triangle Award finalist, an Indie Next Pick, and was widely named a best book of 2017. Her third book, Girlhood, an illustrated essay collection, is forthcoming on March 30, 2021 from Bloomsbury. In 2018, Febos was the recipient of the Jeanne Córdova Nonfiction Award from LAMBDA Literary and the Sarah Verdone Writing Award from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She has been awarded other prizes and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, The Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation, The BAU Institute, Ragdale, Prairie Schooner, and others. Her essays have recently appeared in Tin House, Granta, McSweeney's, The Believer, The Sewanee Review, and The New York Times. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program.
