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The Dry Season
A Memoir

Now available for pre-order
About
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Photo by Beowulf Sheehan
About

Melissa Febos is the author of four books, including the national bestselling essay collection, GIRLHOOD, which has been translated into eight languages and was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and named a notable book of 2021 by NPR, Time, The Washington Post, and others. Her craft book, BODY WORK (2022), was also a national bestseller, an LA Times Bestseller, and an Indie Next Pick. Her fifth book, The Dry Season, is forthcoming from Alfred. A. Knopf on June 3, 2025.

The recipient of a 2022 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and the Jeanne Córdova Nonfiction Award from LAMBDA Literary, Melissa's work has appeared in publications including The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Sun, The Kenyon Review, Tin House, Granta, The Believer, McSweeney’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Elle, and Vogue.

 

Her essays have won prizes from Prairie Schooner, Story Quarterly, The Sewanee Review, and others. She is a four-time MacDowell fellow and has also received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, the Bogliasco Foundation, the American Library in Paris, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation, the BAU Institute at The Camargo Foundation, the British Library, the Black Mountain Institute, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, which named her the 2018 recipient of the Sarah Verdone Writing Award.

She co-curated the Mixer Reading and Music Series in Manhattan for ten years and served on the Board of Directors for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts for five. The recipient of an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, she is a full 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.

My Books
Books

 

October 3-5, 2024

Maine LitFest

Portland, Maine

More info here

October 14, 2024

Denison University

More info here

October 17, 2024

What is a Public Intellectual Today?

Stanford University

More info here

March 1, 2025

Virtual One-Day Seminar

Fine Arts Works Center

TBA

The Researched Memoir

Self-Paced Virtual Seminar

Storystudio

TBA

Contact

Contact

For The Dry Season inquiries, Jordan Rodman: jrodman [at] penguinrandomhouse.com

For Body Work inquiries, Megan Fishmann: Megan.Fishmann [at] catapult.co

For Girlhood inquiries, Emily Fishman: Emily.Fishman [at] Bloomsbury.com

 

For bookings: Elaine Trevorrow at EMT Agency: Elaine [at] emtagency.net

For film/TV: Anna DeRoy at WME: ADeRoy [at] wmeagency.com

Literary: Ethan Bassoff at WME: EBassoff [at] wmeagency.com

Melissa: Melissa.Febos [at] gmail.com

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