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Celebrate the release of Melissa Fraterrigo's latest memoir is essays, The Perils of Girlhood. Join us for a reading, conversation with Eileen Drennen, and treats! Like many girls growing up in the eighties and nineties, Melissa Fraterrigo leaned on popular culture to transition from childhood to adolescence and beyond. Judy Blume told stories about girls embracing their imperfections; Madonna encouraged bold moves. But Fraterrigo’s experiences with dating and attempts to refashion her body through diet and exercise left her feeling far from empowered. It wasn’t until Fraterrigo became a mother to twin daughters and they began their own self-criticisms that she questioned how she might help them navigate their own girlhoods.
A handsome swim coach’s advances, an anxious daughter soothing her father’s temper, the history of Mace, and the joy of female friendship: these are some of the memories that shape Fraterrigo’s worldview as an adult. Written with lyricism and insight, The Perils of Girlhood provides a reckoning and a reclamation. And while these personal narratives developed from Fraterrigo’s desire to guide her daughters, their universal truths compel us to consider how best to bring all of our daughters into the future. Melissa Fraterrigo is the author of the forthcoming memoir in essays, The Perils of Girlhood (University of Nebraska Press, September 2025) and also the novel Glory Days (University of Nebraska Press, fall 2017) and the short story collection The Longest Pregnancy (Livingston Press). Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies from Shenandoah and The Massachusetts Review to storySouth, and Notre Dame Review. She has been a finalist for awards from Glimmer Train on multiple occasions, twice nominated for Pushcart Awards, and was the winner of the Sam Adams/Zoetrope: All Story Short Fiction Contest. She teaches creative writing at Purdue University and also offers instruction on the art and craft of writing at the Lafayette Writers’ Studio in Lafayette, Indiana.
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2122 Scott St., Lafayette, IN, United States, Indiana 47904
