Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative

by Melissa Febos

White masculinity is for everyone, while media that features anyone of any other kind of identity cannot be expected to have an audience beyond those who share that identity.

don’t believe in writer’s block. I only believe in fear. And you can be afraid and still write something.

We are writing the history that we could not find in any other book.

We write to understand things. If we already understood them, most of us would grow too bored to complete the immense task of writing a book about them.

I was writing about my affair and my feelings, but, at least while I was writing, I didn’t have to feel them the same way. It has been like that since childhood. 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.