Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
by Melissa Febos
Buy on AmazonAN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER Memoir meets craft master class 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?…
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"Melissa Febos’ latest essay collection is a craft book of sorts that explores the power of writing our own stories. More a meditation than a strictly practical guide, the essays in Body Work are both personal narratives in themselves and also an argument for how such narratives inevitably create space for community as well as a freer self. Rather than buying into the sexist idea that stories of trauma are dull or overdone or whiney or gauche, Febos encourages her readers to tell their stories, to write them, for themselves or others."
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