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Melissa Broder
American author, essayist and poet From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Melissa Broder (born August 29, 1979) is an American author, essayist and poet. Her work includes the novels The Pisces (Penguin Random House 2018),[1] Milk Fed (Simon and Schuster 2021),[2] and Death Valley (Scribner, 2023);[3] the poetry collection Last Sext (Tin House 2016);[4] and the essay collection So Sad Today (Grand Central 2016),[5] as well as the Twitter feed also titled So Sad Today, on which the book is based.[6] Broder has written for The New York Times, Elle, Vice, Vogue Italia, and New York magazine‘s The Cut.[7]
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Early life
Broder grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, with her younger sister Hayley. Her father, Bob, was a tax lawyer and her mother owned a stationery store. She attended the Baldwin School and became interested in poetry early, writing her first collection in third grade.[5]
Broder attended Tufts University, where she edited the literary magazine Queen's Head and Artichoke. She graduated in 2001 with a degree in English and then moved to San Francisco, where she worked odd jobs before relocating to New York City at 25. There she worked as a publicist for Penguin Books and attended night classes at City College of New York, earning an MFA in poetry.[5]
Broder has been clean and sober since age 25.[8]
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Career
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Poetry
Broder has published five collections of poetry,[9] including Superdoom[10] (2021). She won a Pushcart Prize for the poem "Forgotten Sound",[11] included in her collection Last Sext.
Broder began tweeting anonymously from her So Sad Today Twitter account in 2012.[8] She began her So Sad Today column for Vice in December 2014.[5]
She revealed herself as the account's author in a Rolling Stone interview in May 2015.[12]
As of February 2021, the So Sad Today profile had more than 1 million followers.[13]
So Sad Today
In 2016, Broder published a collection of personal essays, So Sad Today, based on her Twitter account.[14] The collection includes some essays initially published in Vice under her So Sad Today pen name.[5]
The Pisces
In 2018 Broder published the novel The Pisces,[1] which garnered praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue, and The Washington Post.
Milk Fed
In 2021, Broder published Milk Fed,[15] a critically acclaimed[16] novel that Kirkus called "[b]old, dry, and delightfully dirty."[17]
Other projects
Broder is adapting The Pisces for Lionsgate Films.[1]
She also writes the Beauty and Death column for Elle. In 2020 it was announced that a television show based on her novel Milk Fed was being developed. No news has emerged since then.[18]
Broder records a podcast titled eating alone in my car in which she openly discusses her work, daily life, obsessions, and "rants about everything from mortality to Poptarts to depression".[19] She has recorded near-weekly episodes of the podcast since May 2018.
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Personal life
Broder is married and lives in Los Angeles.[20] She is a caregiver for her husband, who has a progressive neuroimmune disease that leaves him bedridden for months at a time.[21] She is bisexual.[22]
Bibliography
Poetry
Essay collection
- So Sad Today (Grand Central, 2016)[31]
Novels
- The Pisces (Penguin Random House, 2018)[32]
- Milk Fed (Simon and Schuster, 2021)[15]
- Death Valley (Simon and Schuster, 2023)[33][34][35]
Contributor
- The Ampersand Vol. 4 (Ampersand Book, 2009)
- Stoked V (2013)
- Poetry Magazine December 2014 (Poetry Foundation, 2014)
- Keep This Bag Away from Children 2
- The Hour of the Star (narrator, 2017)
- Through Clenched Teeth (Triangle House, 2018)
- Regiment of Women (Modern Library, 2023)
- The Princess of 72nd Street: A Novel (Random House, 2024) [36]
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References
External links
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