Melanie grew up in small-town-USA, otherwise known as Maynard, Massachusetts. While in college, she had the opportunity to travel around Europe, including living in Romania for a brief while. Her experiences with Transylvania and her other travels shaped her worldview and color much of her short fiction.

Melanie graduated from Eastern Nazarene College in 2001 with her undergrad in Communications and very little idea what she wanted to be when she grew up. She married her college sweetheart in 2002 and moved to Southern NH shortly thereafter.

Eventually, Melanie decided to start graduate school and enrolled in the MFA program at Lesley University. She started just two weeks after the birth of her first son - and by the time she graduated in 2007, she was living in a new house and had two children under the age of three.   

In 2006, her story "The Simplest of Acts" was selected by author Jodi Picoult (among other judges) as the winner of Family Circle Magazine's fiction competition. And in 2007, it appeared in the magazine. It was Melanie's first fiction submission and first publication. In 2007, her story "Only in Bellington" was chosen by Benjamin Percy as winner of the Ann Arbor Book Festival Short Story Competition. Her story "The Last Thing Before Dirt" appeared in Relief Journal in the Summer of 2008 and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Now, at home with three children under the age of five, Melanie writes to maintain her sanity (the success of which is debatable.) While she is always working on various projects at once, she hopes to complete her first novel this year.

Melanie also enjoys photography.