Melissa Febos grew up on Cape Cod. She dropped out of high school at the age of 15. After homeschooling herself for a year, she moved to Boston, living independently at the age of 16. There, she began taking night classes at Harvard, eventually transferring colleges and moving to New York. She graduated from The New School while working full time as a professional dominatrix, and went on to receive an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She has now lived in Brooklyn for almost ten years. Febos currently teaches literature and writing to students at SUNY Purchase College and at The Gotham Writers' Workshop.
