Melissa Faliveno is the author of the debut essay collection Tomboyland, named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR, New York Public Library, Oprah Magazine, Electric Literature, and Debutiful, and recipient of a 2021 Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement from the Wisconsin Library Association. Her writing has appeared in Esquire, Paris Review, Kenyon Review, Literary Hub, Ms. magazine, Bitch magazine, and Brooklyn Rail, among others, and in the anthologies Sex and the Single Woman and Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music. Born and raised in small-town Wisconsin and a longtime resident of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, she teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina and lives in the woods outside Chapel Hill.