Melissa Gira Grant is a staff writer covering justice at The New Republic. Melissa was a senior staff reporter at The Appeal, where her reporting on the police killing of Donna Dalton brought national attention to the story in 2018. She was also a contributing writer at The Village Voice and Pacific Standard. She is the author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Verso), deemed a “must-read” by MSNBC host Chris Hayes and named one of the best books of 2014 by The Village Voice.