jim-pennucci

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/payment/"></div>By <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/contributor/melissa-chadburn">Melissa Chadburn</a>
Before I die… this is the writing prompt I used to give the first day of class. And I wish I remember what the tall young blonde had written. Carrie Melvin, whose favorite novel was The Lover by Marguerite Duras. She brought a copy to class and talked about it sheepishly. Like this was revealing something very secret about her. The way we do when we talk about books. I wish I was paying special attention to what she said. Because two weeks later, in July of 2015, she was murdered. <a href="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/payment/#more-2832" class="more-link">Read more</a>
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On Payment

The Suicide of Claire Bishop

<h4>Melissa Chadburn has written for Guernica, Buzzfeed, Poets &amp; Writers, Salon, American Public Media’s Marketplace, Al Jazeera America, and dozens other places. Her essay, “The Throwaways,” received notable mention in Best American Essays and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her first novel, A Tiny Upward Shove, is forthcoming with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.</h4>

Melissa Chadburn

I Need to Know Everything About You: Melissa Chadburn with Carmiel Banasky

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." — Mark Twain

Fiction

Kitchens of the Great Midwest

Why We Read

Melissa Chadburn has written for Guernica, Buzzfeed, Poets &amp; Writers, Salon, American Public Media’s Marketplace, Al Jazeera America, and dozens other places. Her essay, “The Throwaways,” received notable mention in Best American Essays and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her first novel, A Tiny Upward Shove, is forthcoming with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.