Melissa Broder


Melissa Broder is an American author, essayist and poet. Her work includes the novels The Pisces, Milk Fed, and Death Valley ; the poetry collection Last Sext ; and the essay collection So Sad Today, as well as the Twitter feed also titled So Sad Today, on which the book is based. Broder has written for The New York Times, [Elle |Elle], Vice, Vogue Italia, and New York magazine‘s The Cut.

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.
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.
Broder has been clean and sober since age 25.

Career

Poetry

Broder has published five collections of poetry, including Superdoom. She won a Pushcart Prize for the poem "Forgotten Sound", included in her collection ''Last Sext.''

Twitter

Broder began tweeting anonymously from her So Sad Today Twitter account in 2012. She began her So Sad Today column for Vice in December 2014.
She revealed herself as the account's author in a Rolling Stone interview in May 2015.
As of February 2021, the So Sad Today profile had more than 1 million followers.

''So Sad Today''

In 2016, Broder published a collection of personal essays, So Sad Today, based on her Twitter account. The collection includes some essays initially published in Vice under her So Sad Today pen name.

''The Pisces''

In 2018 Broder published the novel The Pisces, which garnered praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue, and The Washington Post.

''Milk Fed''

In 2021, Broder published Milk Fed, a critically acclaimed novel that Kirkus called "old, dry, and delightfully dirty."

Other projects

Broder is adapting The Pisces for Lionsgate Films.
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.
Broder records a podcast titled in which she openly discusses her work, daily life, obsessions, and "rants about everything from mortality to Poptarts to depression". She has recorded near-weekly episodes of the podcast since May 2018.

Personal life

Broder is married and lives in Los Angeles. She is a caregiver for her husband, who has a progressive neuroimmune disease that leaves him bedridden for months at a time. She is bisexual.

Poetry

  • When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother
  • Meat Heart
  • Scarecrone
  • Dust Moan
  • Last Sext
  • ''Superdoom: Selected Poems''

    Essay collection

  • ''So Sad Today''

    Novels

  • The Pisces
  • Milk Fed
  • Death Valley
Contributor