Alison Bass is an award-winning journalist and author who teaches journalism at West Virginia University. Her second nonfiction book, Getting Screwed: Sex Work and the Law, published in October 2015, weaves the true stories of sex workers with the latest research on prostitution into a gripping journalistic narrative. Her book argues that U.S. laws criminalizing prostitution are not only largely ineffective in curbing the sex trade, but create an atmosphere that encourages the exploitation of sex workers and violence against all women. Her first book, Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial, won the prestigious NASW Science in Society Award in 2009.
