Alissa Nutting (born 1980 or 1981) is an American author, creative writing professor and television writer. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, Fence, BOMB and the fairy tale anthology My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me.
Tampa is a novel that combines erotica, satire and social criticism. It claims to address double standards like gender-based expectations of women, regarding beauty and the great extent of mischief for which women may be forgiven provided they are young and beauteous. The novel centres on a middle-school teacher who has sexual relations with her students. Nutting was inspired by Debra Lafave, a teacher charged with having sex with her under-age students in 2005. Nutting went to high school with Lafave; seeing someone she knew on the news raised her awareness of the issue of female predators. The book was banned in many bookstores for being too explicit.
When asked if it was difficult to come in and out of perspective with a deranged character Nutting replied: "It was like going under anesthesia—once I was inside it, I felt like I had to make the most of it because it was so difficult to go in and out. I ended up writing in really marathon sessions, 7-8 hours at a time. After I was done each day I had this hangover feeling—my body felt a grand fatigue even though I’d been seated the whole time. It took me a while to become verbal again after writing." She also explains how her publisher and editors understood that the content needed to be explicit and they didn’t ask her to tone it down.
She contributed to The &NOW Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing (&NOW Books, May 2013).
Her writing has appeared in The Norton Introduction to Literature, Fence, Tin House, The New York Times, Bomb, Conduit, and . In April 2021, the television series adaptation of her book Made for Love premiered on HBO Max; it was cancelled in July 2022 after two seasons following the merger of HBO Max's parent company WarnerMedia with Discovery, Inc. to become Warner Bros. Discovery. Nutting would later go on to co-create Teenage Euthanasia with Alyson Levy for Adult Swim, which premiered on the network on September 6, 2021 and is renewed for a second season.
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