Melissa Holbrook Pierson (born December 14, 1957)[1] is an American writer and essayist of non-fiction.

She attended Vassar College, receiving her AB in English Literature in 1980.

[citation needed] She is a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast and this is reflected in many of her books.

Her works are often explorations of personal experience, extended into general social commentary and history.

"[2] The Place You Love is Gone was described by Anthony Swofford in The New York Times Book Review as "the punk rock girl sitting in the rear pews at church, offering a counter narrative: what she says about the patriarchy and the raping of the land (and the Indians and dairy farmers and denizens of small towns in upstate New York) is true but the priests (elected politicians and water managers and ambitious city planners) wish her parents would drag the girl home; the organ player pipes louder in order to drown the punk's anti-establishment rant.