Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Iowa. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and has authored four books, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Girlhood and the craft book Body Work. Her work focuses on creative nonfiction, memoir, and intersectional social justice themes. Febos has received prestigious awards such as the Guggenheim Fellowship and NEA Literature Fellowship.

Her essays appear in The New York Review of Books, Granta, and The Paris Review. She actively engages in DEI initiatives, serving on the department’s IDEAS Committee and completing extensive BUILD trainings on diversity, implicit bias, and activism. Febos is also a recipient of grants from institutions like MacDowell and Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference.