Melissa Febos
Autor de Girlhood
Sobre El Autor
Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir Whip Smart, the essay collection Abandon Me, and a writing craft book, Body Work. She is the inaugural winner of the Jeanne Crdova Nonfiction Prize from Lambda Literary and the recipient of Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, mostrar más Bread Loaf, and others. Her essays have appeared in the Paris Review, the Believer, the New York Times, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program. mostrar menos
Obras de Melissa Febos
Obras relacionadas
What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence (2019) — Contribuidor — 254 copias
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Género
- female
- Nacionalidad
- USA
- Lugares de residencia
- Brooklyn, New York, USA
Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA - Educación
- Sarah Lawrence College (MFA ∙ Fiction and Nonfiction writing)
The New School (BA ∙ Literature and Writing) - Ocupaciones
- dominatrix
essayist
memoirist - Premios y honores
- Jeanne Córdova Prize (2018)
- Agente
- Scott Hoffman
Miembros
Reseñas
These essays perfectly encapsulate the awkward time between youth and womanhood. Uncertainty, embarrassment, shame, self-actualization, inadequacy, and trying to live up to unreasonable beauty standards are just some of the many topics covered in this collection, all of which are approached with a profound sense of kindness and understanding.
Melissa Febos transfixed me at times, educated and enlightened me the entire time. Learning through essays of the pains, fears & damage of women who, as girls, were traumatized as a result of being girls was shockingly eye-opening and deeply disturbing.
Because personal narrative is what flows from me when I sit to write I knew I wanted, even needed, to read Fobes's offering when a friend recommended it. It is thoughtful, original, encouraging, honest and a whole lot more. So glad I own a copy of my own.
Sentences and whole paragraphs underlined—many. Here are a few gems:
Navel-gazing is not for the faint of heart. The risk of honest self-appraisal requires bravery. To place our flawed selves in the context of this magnificent, broken world is the opposition of narcissism, which is building a self-image that pleases you.
Listen to me: It is not gauche to write about trauma. It is subversive. The stigma of victimhood is a timeworn tool of oppressive powers to gaslight the people they subjugate into relieving that by naming their disempowerment tye are being dramatic, whining, attention-grabbing, or els beating a dead horse. By convincing us to police our own and one another’s stories, they have enlisted us in the project of our own continued disempowerment.
…the more we believe we ought to be something that we are not, the more money we will spend in that mission. … The genius of social conditioning is that it is vital and can adapt to any situation a human might enter.
Whereas writing was once an exercise in transcription, it has become an exercise in transformation.
An analytical part of me takes over when I write and creates a distance between me and the subject, and in that space I have always been able to breathe. Like a cracked door the cold seems trough, so did the truth begin to seep into me.
…a way to make my suffering useful. Beautiful, even.… (más)
Sentences and whole paragraphs underlined—many. Here are a few gems:
Navel-gazing is not for the faint of heart. The risk of honest self-appraisal requires bravery. To place our flawed selves in the context of this magnificent, broken world is the opposition of narcissism, which is building a self-image that pleases you.
Listen to me: It is not gauche to write about trauma. It is subversive. The stigma of victimhood is a timeworn tool of oppressive powers to gaslight the people they subjugate into relieving that by naming their disempowerment tye are being dramatic, whining, attention-grabbing, or els beating a dead horse. By convincing us to police our own and one another’s stories, they have enlisted us in the project of our own continued disempowerment.
…the more we believe we ought to be something that we are not, the more money we will spend in that mission. … The genius of social conditioning is that it is vital and can adapt to any situation a human might enter.
Whereas writing was once an exercise in transcription, it has become an exercise in transformation.
An analytical part of me takes over when I write and creates a distance between me and the subject, and in that space I have always been able to breathe. Like a cracked door the cold seems trough, so did the truth begin to seep into me.
…a way to make my suffering useful. Beautiful, even.… (más)
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Die Debatte um strukturelle Benachteiligung von Frauen und schwer zu ändernde Geschlechterbilder ist eine wichtige und langwierige, aus meiner Sicht trägt dieses Buch aber nicht dazu bei, dass sich die breite Masse damit stärker auseinandersetzt. Schade auch, dass das Buch in die verschiedenen Essays zerfällt, hier hätte ich mir mehr Kontinuität in der Erzählung gewünscht. Selbst die autobiographischen Anteile folgen nur grob einer Zeitleiste.
Wäre es keine Leserunde gewesen, hätte ich das Buch abgebrochen (und in Kenntnis des gesamten Textes hätte ich es auch nicht bereut).… (más)