Here are some places Melissa’s creative writing, personal essays, and interviews have appeared.

POETRY

• GIRL FILLING THE SKY, full-length collection forthcoming from Cider Press Review, January 2026

• Writers Resist: “Why I Fight for Texas Even Though Everyone Says We Should Move”

• The Minnesota Review: “Box of Twinkies, 1984”

• Synchroniciti: “Sleeping Late, I Heard” (link is to purchase issue)

• Phoebe: “Young Woman”

• SWWIM: “If You Wondered About the Astronaut Who Never Went to Space”

• Sweet: A Literary Confection: “Elegy for a Promise Ring”

• Thimble Literary Magazine: “The Worried Woman Odes” (Note: this poem was nominated for a Pushcart Prize)

• Poetry South (print only): “Pink Evening Primrose, or Buttercup as My Mom Called It”

• Chaos Dive Reunion, anthology from Mutabilis Press (print only): “Unspoken,” “Guidance,” “My Son Talks About Minecraft”

• Reformatting the Pain Scale, anthology from Olney Magazine (print only): “Obituary” and “On the Pain Scale, I am a 6”

• Remembered Arts Journal (now folded): “Mother”

FICTION

• Defunkt: “The Playground” (page 18) Note: This story won the Spider’s Web Flash Fiction Prize from Spider Road Press.

ESSAYS/INTERVIEWS

• Porter House Review: “Creation is the Point: Overcoming Comparison and Inadequacy as Writers” and “Porter House Reads: Halloween Edition” (contributor)

• Porter House Review: “Being Your Full Self on the Page: A Conversation with Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil”