
Melissa Gira Grant is a journalist, author, and filmmaker.
She is is a staff writer at The New Republic; the author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Verso); and the co-director of They Won't Call It Murder. She has reported on violence against massage workers in Flushing; attacks on trans rights across Texas; resistance to police killings in Columbus, and the global movement for sex workers' rights. Her forthcoming book, A Woman Is Against the Law: Sex, Race, and the Limits of Justice in America (Little, Brown and Company), uses narrative journalism and original archival research to offer a feminist indictment of the criminal legal system, drawing on 150 years of women’s attempts to appeal to the law in search of safety, accountability, power, and freedom.Featured Work

Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work
Playing the Whore redefines the politics of sex work, placing sex workers at the center of the story. A Village Voice favorite book of the year.

Feature Reporting
Narrative and longform journalism, for The New Republic, The Village Voice, and others.

Journalism
Feature reporting and criticism, from criminal justice to sexual politics.