Melissa Faliveno is the author of the 2020 memoir-in-essays Tomboyland, published by Topple Books. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Faliveno now teaches creative writing at UNC Chapel Hill.
Much of Faliveno’s writing discusses themes of sexuality and gender, though she also writes about class, violence, home, and her upbringing in the Midwest. Her work has appeared in various national publications, including the queer site Autostraddle. She was also the former senior editor of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Faliveno is publicly out as bisexual. Her essay “Tomboy,” anthologized in Tomboyland, details her complicated relationship with gender and bisexuality; due to her androgynous appearance, Faliveno writes that people are often surprised to learn that she dates men; they assume, erroneously, that she must be interested only in women. She spends the rest of the essay unwinding these experiences of bi erasure, which feel particularly tense because her current partner is male. It was named a best book by Oprah Magazine, the New York Public Library, and NPR. The Wisconsin Public Library also presented it with a 2021 Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement.
In 2020, Esquire excerpted a portion of “Tomboy” that focuses specifically on Faliveno’s treatment of language and the fluidity of both sexuality and words; she’s always seeking new language to better reflect her lived experiences. Of labels like bi, genderqueer, and queer, she writes, “I use these words because they’re the best words I have. […] And sometimes I feel like I’m still seeking the words that fit […].”
Faliveno confirmed her use of the term bisexual in a 2020 panel on gay experiences, in which she discussed the questions that prompted her to write Tomboyland. As reported by The Rumpus, these included themes of identity, family, class, and self. In that same panel, Faliveno noted that she came out to her family via her essay collection, and though she’d wanted to present her parents with copies of the book in person, the pandemic prevented that; instead, she decided to mail them the books “along with a seven-page letter, explaining, apologizing, expressing the realities of her life that she’d never discussed with them before.” (As a Midwesterner, she noted that sexuality and gender were not topics easily brought up at the dinner table.)
In August of 2020, Faliveno again referred to herself as bi in a Tweeet/X post announcing Tomboyland’s best-seller status on Amazon in the bisexuality studies category: “Hi hello it's me, #1 bestselling bisexual.”
Though the discussions within Tomboyland were not new for the bi and queer communities, the essays are, as noted in author Alex Marzano-Lesnevich’s blurb for the book, “smartly constructed, urgently delivered”. Faliveno’s writing addresses common bisexual experiences, such as bi erasure and biphobia, with a deft hand, allowing for the complexities of identity and sexuality. Her work does not take a one-size-fits-all approach.
Since the publication of Tomboyland, Faliveno has continued to write and teach. In 2022, her work appeared in the anthology Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown's Cult Classic.
Check out our Media Entry on Tomboyland here.