Become a Member

Posts by author

Melissa Petro

Melissa Petro is a journalist whose writing has been featured in The Washington Post, Allure, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Good Housekeeping, The Guardian, InStyle, and many other national publications. She was a finalist for the PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize, and she holds a bachelor in Women’s Studies from Antioch and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The New School. She lives with her husband and two young children in Upstate New York.
  • ,
    Melissa Petro

    The First Book: Melissa Petro

    In our culture, motherhood is presumably sanctified, and I thought I’d experience social acceptance beyond anything I’d ever imagined. Instead, I felt under constant surveillance and yet utterly invisible….

  • Melissa Petro

    The Other One Percent

    I’m at NYU Dental waiting to get a cavity filled. I’m at NYU Dental because I’m poor, although if I were really poor — I am thinking — I wouldn’t be at a dentist at all. I happen to be…

  • ,
    Melissa Petro

    A Ritual for Being Born Twice

    Melissa Petro lost her job last summer after publishing an article on The Rumpus about her former life as a sex worker.

  • ,
    Melissa Petro

    Not Safe For Work

    Today, I realize the truth — that it is not sex work that society fears is dangerous, but sex workers. I recently had the experience at my job of being warned by a colleague that other coworkers have begun Googling…