Canongate to publish 'revelatory' memoir The Dry Season by Melissa Febos

Canongate has acquired The Dry Season: Finding Pleasure in a Year Without Sex, a new memoir from Melissa Febos, the author of Girlhood (Bloomsbury).

Editorial director Helena Gonda bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Anna Carmichael at Abner Stein, and US rights were acquired by Vanessa Haughton at Knopf, who will publish alongside Canongate in summer 2025.

The synopsis states: "In the wake of a disastrous two-year relationship, Melissa Febos decided to take a break. The Dry Season records Melissa’s year-long period of self-imposed celibacy, as well as the solitude, the freedoms and the feminist heroes she discovered along the way."

Gonda commented: "I have long been a fan of Melissa and to have the opportunity to bring her to Canongate was too exciting to miss. The Dry Season tells the story of how a year of celibacy led to the most sensual, happiest and transformative year of her life. It is a book about deep self-knowledge, intellectual exploration and radical liberation."

Febos added: "I did not plan to write about my time celibate because I never expected that it would radically transform my perspective on, and practices of love and sex. But on the other side of that year, I was changed, and eager to share the insights I gleaned during that strange, funny, deep, and vivid time."