Good Societies: Dialogue with Melissa Fay Greene

Melissa Fay Greene

Melissa was born in Macon, Georgia, December 30, 1952, moved to Dayton, Ohio, in childhood, and graduated from Oberlin College in 1975. She returned to Georgia in ’75 to work for the Savannah office of Georgia Legal Services and was a witness to most of the events about which she later would write in Praying for Sheetrock.

Greene is a regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine and Good Housekeeping. She also writes for the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Readers Digest, Newsweek, Life, the Washington Post, Ms, and Parenting. She has been a frequent guest at CNN and on NPR, and her stories have been featured on Good Morning, America; The Today Show; Primetime; and 20/20. She is married to Donald F. Samuel, a criminal defense attorney, partner in the firm Garland, Samuel & Loeb. They have seven children and live in Atlanta.

Two of Greene’s books have been nominated for the National Book Award and Praying for Sheetrock was named one of the top 100 works of all journalism of the 20^th century.