Author Guide · Memoir & Essays
Books Written by
At sixteen Melissa Febos passed the GED and left her home in Falmouth, on Cape Cod, for Boston; by 1999 she was in New York, enrolled at The New School and already using heroin. For the next four years she paid for college by working as a professional dominatrix in a Manhattan dungeon, the story of her first book, Whip Smart (2010). The daughter of a sea captain and a therapist, she has since written about her absent birth father, the lessons girls learn about their bodies, and a year without sex. Girlhood (2021) won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and she now directs the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. This guide covers her 5 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 5 key books · 2010–2025 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Melissa Febos has published five books: the memoir Whip Smart (2010), the essay collections Abandon Me (2017) and Girlhood (2021), the craft book Body Work (2022) and the memoir The Dry Season (2025). Start with Girlhood, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and has been translated into ten languages; the essays run from a neighbourhood boy in childhood to a cuddle party.
Where to Start with Melissa Febos
If you want her defining book
→ Girlhood (2021) — essays on what girls are taught about their bodies.
If you want a memoir with a story
→ Whip Smart (2010) — four years in a Manhattan dungeon.
If you want to write about your own life
→ Body Work (2022) — her case for memoir, with practical advice.
If you want her most recent book
→ The Dry Season (2025) — a planned three months of celibacy that became a year.
5 Melissa Febos Books, in Order
Whip Smart
Published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2010. After a chance meeting with a neighbour, Febos, a student at The New School and a heroin user, takes a job in an upscale S&M house in Manhattan and spends four years there as a professional dominatrix. The memoir follows the double life, her getting clean, and why leaving the work proved harder than leaving the drugs.
Abandon Me
Linked essays, published by Bloomsbury in February 2017. Febos writes about her birth father, part Native American and an addict she did not know growing up, about the sea-captain father who raised her and was often at sea, and about an obsessive long-distance affair with a married woman. It was a Lambda Literary Award finalist and a Publishing Triangle Award finalist.
Girlhood
Essays published by Bloomsbury in March 2021 that combine memoir, research and interviews with other women. Febos looks at puberty and sex education, street harassment, slut-shaming and consent; in “Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself” she goes to a cuddle party, cannot say no to a stranger, and goes back to practise. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist and a national bestseller, and has been translated into ten languages.
Body Work
Four essays, published by Catapult in 2022, that mix memoir with advice on writing about your own life. Febos argues against the dismissal of personal writing as navel-gazing, and writes about sex scenes, the ethics of writing about people you know, and what the process does to the writer. It was a national bestseller and a Los Angeles Times bestseller.
The Dry Season
Published by Knopf in June 2025. After a catastrophic two-year relationship, at the end of a run of romances since her teens, Febos plans three months without dating or sex and extends it to a year. She sets her year beside women who chose other lives, from Hildegard von Bingen and the Shakers to Virginia Woolf, Sappho and Octavia Butler. Time put it on its 100 Must-Read Books of 2025, and it was a 2026 Lambda Literary Award finalist.
In What Order to Read Melissa Febos
Her books do not depend on each other, so you can start anywhere. Girlhood is the best first choice: it shows her mix of memoir, research and interviews at full strength, and its subjects, the body, consent and desire, run through everything else she has written.
After that, publication order works well. Whip Smart and Abandon Me supply the life story behind the essays, Body Work explains how and why she writes about it, and The Dry Season returns to the subject of desire from the other side, a year without sex.
A reading path
1. Girlhood (2021)
2. Whip Smart (2010)
3. Abandon Me (2017)
4. Body Work (2022)
5. The Dry Season (2025)
The years · 1999–2025
Quick facts about Melissa Febos
- Known for
- Memoir and essays about the body, addiction, desire and consent that combine her own life with research and interviews, most of all in Girlhood.
- 1999
- Moves to New York; The New School
- 2010
- First book, Whip Smart
- 2021
- Girlhood
- 2025
- The Dry Season
- Born
- Falmouth, Massachusetts; raised on Cape Cod by a sea-captain father and a therapist mother
- Education
- BA, The New School; MFA in Writing, Sarah Lawrence College
- Teaching
- Roy J. Carver Professor and Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program, University of Iowa; earlier MFA director at Monmouth University
- Honours
- National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism (2021); Guggenheim Fellowship and NEA Literature Fellowship (2022); Jeanne Córdova Prize (2018)
- Married
- The poet Donika Kelly; they live in Iowa
- Translations
- Girlhood has been translated into ten languages
The red mark is 2021: Girlhood, the essay collection that won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
How Melissa Febos Writes: Telling the Secret
Febos writes about what is usually kept quiet: sex work, heroin, an affair with a married woman, the shame girls learn about their bodies. In her TEDxNavesink talk she describes a lifelong habit of secrecy and argues that telling secrets frees the teller; Body Work makes the same case on the page, against critics who call personal writing self-indulgent.
Her books move from memoir towards a mix of forms. Whip Smart is a straight narrative; Abandon Me is a set of linked lyric essays; Girlhood adds research and interviews with other women, as when she follows a cuddle party with conversations about consent; The Dry Season sets her own year beside the lives of Hildegard von Bingen, Virginia Woolf and Octavia Butler.
She is also a teacher, now at the University of Iowa, and Body Work turns her classroom advice into a book, from writing sex scenes to writing about family. For writers who work the same ground, see Authors like Melissa Febos.
Watch
Telling your secrets can set you free
Febos talks about her lifelong habit of secrecy and why telling secrets, on the page and off it, can set the teller free.
Frequently asked questions about Melissa Febos’s books
How many books has Melissa Febos written?
Five: Whip Smart (2010), Abandon Me (2017), Girlhood (2021), Body Work (2022) and The Dry Season (2025).
What are Melissa Febos’s books in order?
Whip Smart (2010), Abandon Me (2017), Girlhood (2021), Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative (2022) and The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex (2025).
Where should I start with Melissa Febos?
With Girlhood (2021). If you prefer a memoir with a single story, start with Whip Smart.
What is Melissa Febos’s most famous book?
Girlhood (2021). It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist and a national bestseller, and has been translated into ten languages.
What is The Dry Season about?
A year without sex. After a catastrophic two-year relationship, Febos planned three months without dating or sex and extended it to a year, and she sets that year beside the lives of women such as Hildegard von Bingen, Virginia Woolf and Octavia Butler. It was published by Knopf in June 2025.
Is Whip Smart a true story?
Yes. It is a memoir of the four years Febos worked as a professional dominatrix in a Manhattan S&M house while studying at The New School, and of her heroin addiction and recovery.
What is Body Work about?
It is a book about writing memoir: four essays that defend personal writing against the charge of self-indulgence and give practical advice, for instance on writing sex scenes and writing about people you know.
What awards has Melissa Febos won?
The National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism for Girlhood, the Lambda Literary Foundation’s Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction (2018), and Guggenheim and NEA Literature fellowships in 2022. Abandon Me and The Dry Season were Lambda Literary Award finalists.
Where does Melissa Febos teach?
At the University of Iowa, where she is the Roy J. Carver Professor and directs the Nonfiction Writing Program. Until 2020 she was an associate professor and MFA director at Monmouth University in New Jersey.
Who is Melissa Febos married to?
The poet Donika Kelly. They live in Iowa.
Footnotes
- Melissa Febos — Wikipedia
- Melissa Febos — University of Iowa, Department of English
- Melissa Febos — official website
- Whip Smart — Kirkus Reviews
- Abandon Me — Kirkus Reviews
- The Dry Season — BookBrowse
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I tell my students that if you want to be a writer you need to learn how to look.”
— Melissa Febos, “Telling Your Secrets Can Set You Free”, TEDxNavesink talk
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations