Melissa Gira Grant
| Melissa Gira Grant | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Melissa Grant |
| Nationality | American |
Melissa Gira Grant (born 1978 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American freelance journalist. She is author of Playing the Whore (Verso, 2014),[1] the extended essay[2] Take This Book (Glass Houses, 2012)[3] and co-editor of the ebook Coming and Crying (Glass Houses, 2010.)[4]
Early life
Melissa Grant was born in Boston, Massachusetts and took classes at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at San Francisco State University[5][6] without graduating.
Work
Grant is a former sex worker[7][8] who began sex work to pay for being a writer.[9]
In 2016, Grant received backlash from the sex worker community for publishing a sex worker's story without her consent. Leading sex work activist Mistress Matisse stated "I had hoped that Melissa Gira would reach out and do something to make this right, but it doesn't seem like it. It's very disappointing."[10]
In 2010, she founded self-publishing imprint Glass Houses Press;[11] the website appears to have been defunct since 2015. Its publications included the extended essay Take This Book, a Kickstarted ebook on the Occupy Wall Street People's Library which was criticised for not producing a promised physical edition.[12] Its other release was Coming and Crying, an anthology of stories about sex, including Audacia Ray, and other writers. Her brief monograph Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (2014) is published by Verso.
Grant was a member of the Exotic Dancers Union[13] and a board member at the Lusty Lady Theater in San Francisco. Grant worked at St. James Infirmary Clinic in San Francisco from 2006 to 2009. Later she was on the staff of Third Wave Foundation a social justice and feminist foundation in New York. She was a reporter at Valleywag in 2008.[14] Gira claims to have been one of the first "Web cam girls." In 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle reported she had a daily audience of 4,000 visitors after 12 years as a cam girl.
Grant is a writer covering the intersection of sex, politics, and technology. Grant has written for the Nation, the Atlantic, Wired, the Guardian, Reason, Glamour, Slate, Jezebel, Rhizome, AlterNet, In These Times, and $pread.[15] She was previously a contributing editor at Jacobin.[16]
Publications
- Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (2014) (Verso)
- Take This Book: A History of the People's Library at Occupy Wall Street (2012) (Glass Houses Press)
- Coming and Crying (2010) (Glass Houses Press) co-editor
See also
External links
References
- ↑ "Verso". Retrieved 2014-01-11.
- ↑ "Take This Book publication details". Retrieved 2016-04-05.
- ↑ "Glass Houses". Retrieved 2014-01-11.
- ↑ "Glass Houses". Retrieved 2014-01-11.
- ↑ "Waging War On Sex Workers, Zoe Schlanger interviews Melissa Gira Grant - Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics". guernicamag.com. Retrieved 2014-04-04.
- ↑ "About | postwhoreamerica". postwhoreamerica.com. Retrieved 2014-04-04.
- ↑ "Waging War On Sex Workers, Zoe Schlanger interviews Melissa Gira Grant - Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics". guernicamag.com. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
- ↑ "Why we couldn't stop reading Melissa Gira Grant". gawker.com. Retrieved 2014-04-04.
- ↑ "I got into sex work to afford to be a writer". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
- ↑ Mistress Matisse (4 April 2016). "Melissa Gira Grant Puts Heroic Escort Heather Through The Buzzsaw On Buzzfeed". Medium. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
- ↑ "About – Glass Houses". glasshousespress.com. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
- ↑ "Take This Book publishing update". Retrieved 4 April 2016.
- ↑ "Organized Labor's Newest Heroes: Strippers - Melissa Gira Grant - The Atlantic". theatlantic.com. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
- ↑ "The New York Times". nytimes.com. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
- ↑ "Post Whore America". Retrieved 2014-01-11.
- ↑ "About – Jacobin". jacobinmag.com. Retrieved 12 January 2014.