In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it presents. How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as "navel-gazing"-or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her journey from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor-via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia-Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideas-and occasional notes of caution-to anyone who has ever hoped to see their true self reflecting back from the open page. -- .

Nearing the end of his career as a ship surgeon, he agreed in 1817 to take a three year posting to St Helena. Stokoe set out for St Helena on HMS Conqueror in 1817. At St Helena there was discord following the Governor, Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe's controversial decision to dismiss Napoleon's doctor, Barry O'Mara. About this time, Napoleon asked that Mr Stokoe, who had once attended him and who he understood was returning to St Helena, might attend him again 'or would the Governor authorize some other English doctor to come, providing he sign similar conditions as had been accepted by Stokoe in the past.' Immediately after, Mr Stokoe arrived at St Helena, was put under arrest and tried on varying counts-seven in all. The whole was found proven. The third indictment read, 'That he had signed a paper purporting to be a bulletin of General Bonaparte's health, and divulged the same to the General and his attendants contrary to orders, ' and the seventh, 'That he had contrary to his duty, and the character of a British Naval Officer, communicated to General Bonaparte or his attendant an infamous and calumnious imputation cast upon Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe. etc. by Barry O'Meara, late surgeon in the Royal Navy' (also now dismissed) 'implying that Sir Hudson Lowe had practiced with the said O'Meara to induce him to put an end to the existence of General Bonaparte. ' Stokoe, though dismissed the Navy, was put on half-pay. At Stokoe's treatment Napoleon, enraged, refused the future services of British doctors. This book is Stokoe's own defense, another book with damning evidence against the notorious Governor-Sir Hudson Lowe