About Melanie
Melanie lives in Washington State and works for a public library, awaiting the day she can write full time. She is currently hard at work on short stories for the Coastal Magic podcast, with time out for cooking, origami and semi-regular exercise. She has several novels in the works and other series planned, and wishes there were more than twenty-four hours in a day. Her dream destinations include the Poison Garden at Alnwick, the Winchester House and the International Spy Museum, although she is up for visiting any weird and wonderful place.
The Full Story
One of Melanie’s earliest memories is receiving a book for her birthday that was written as though she was the main character. Her mother had discovered a company that sold template-style picture books. Fill in the blank with the child’s name, and presto, it’s the child’s story.
Although Melanie loved reading, she didn’t love the book. It seemed to her that the best stories were about somebody other than herself.
As a grade schooler, she still preferred imaginary people and worlds to stories about real life. The other students wrote about the usual things: summer vacation. A beloved pet. A sibling. Melanie wrote a story about a monster in her bedroom closet, who would creep out and attack if she was foolish enough to close her eyes. Fantasy authors are born, not made.
Unfortunately, like so many authors, Melanie heard over and over that you couldn’t make a living writing books. In fact, the odds of being published were roughly the same as winning the Lotto. For too many years, she consoled herself with long and overly creative work emails, and short stories written in secret and shared only with her brother. Until the day, on a whim, she submitted a short story to the Writer’s Digest yearly contest, and won Honorable Mention, beating out thousands of other entries.
She knew then that she could write well enough to interest publishers. But it wasn’t a dream she talked about with others. People still felt compelled to warn her that she couldn’t make it as a writer, no matter how good she was.
Then the pandemic hit.
Melanie’s workplace temporarily closed, and she had a couple of months of paid time off, with nothing to do but attempt a novel. She attended a writer’s conference the following year, and showed the first ten pages of that novel to two different acquisitions editors. Both wanted to see the book.
Until they discovered she was a total unknown. The publishing houses couldn’t offer her a contract until she built an audience of fans.
Today, she is building that audience through her podcast, Coastal Magic, which features fantasy stories set in the town of Seaside, Oregon. The podcast started with only six listeners, but now has fans in America, Canada, Germany, the UK, India, Japan, Australia and more. The stories incorporate mythical creatures from folktales told all over the world, as well as sarcasm and adventure and lots of action-packed fight scenes. She plans to release these episodes in print form as short story collections in late 2025 or early 2026. She also has several full-length novels planned, all set in the Coastal Magic Universe.
Melanie’s goal is to become a full-time independent author so she can keep giving readers the kind of stories they want to hear. She invites everyone to come play in her world.
And she hopes they remember to close the closet door before they shut off the light.