Melanie is a Brisbane-based writer, editor, academic and occasional actor. She is a graduate of QUT’s nationally acclaimed acting program and has a Doctorate in Creative Writing. In 2018, she won the Queensland Literary Awards Glendower Award for an Emerging Writer for her manuscript 'Garrison Town', which was published as Meet Me at Lennon's (UQP) in 2019. Meet Me at Lennon's was shortlisted for the 2020 Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance and Courier-Mail People's Choice Award.
Her work has been published in Kill Your Darlings, Overland, Arena Magazine, Griffith Review, Hecate and TEXT and her short fiction has won or been shortlisted for various literary awards. In 2021, she received an Arts Queensland Individuals Funds grant to work on her next novel and a Griffith Review Queensland Showcase Fellowship.
She was Artistic Director of Reality Bites Festival from 2012–2014. In 2013 she realised a long-held ambition to play Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. She once appeared on the ABC's The Einstein Factor based on her extensive and obsessive knowledge of all things Vivien Leigh. Her hobbies include fussing over her tuxedo cat Moosha and her growing collection of indoor plants. She lives in a converted church on Brisbane's northside with her photographer partner Glenn Hunt.

Photo credit: Glenn Hunt
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'Performance Enhancement: The Enduring Value of Acting Schools' Griffith Review 75: Learning Curves, February 2022
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'Review of ‘The Smallest Lights in the Universe' Science Write Now, November 2021
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'Going Above and Beyond' TEXT Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, TEXT Reviews, October 2021
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'The Empathy Machine?' Griffith Review 64: The New Disruptors, April 2019
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Meet Me at Lennon's UQP, September 2019
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'The Promised Land' Kill Your Darlings, November 2018
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'Recess' Kill Your Darlings Journal, Issue 24, January 2016
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'The Woman Who Loved Those Yanks: The facts and fictions of Maureen C. Meadows narration of that desire' Hecate Vol. 40, Issue 2, 2015 (academic article)
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'Savage Women' Arena Magazine, Issue 33, 2015
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'Writers Festivals, Writers Fees' Overland, August 2014
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'Crit-lit: A Reviewers Guide to the Writers' Festival' Brisbane Times/SMH, September 2011
Awards, Grants & Shortlists
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Griffith Review Queensland Showcase Fellowship
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Arts Queensland Individuals Fund Grant, 'Voicing the McDonagh Sisters' (historical biofiction), 2021
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Meet Me at Lennon's shortlisted for 2020 Queensland Literary Awards Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance and Courier Mail People's Choice Award
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Winner Glendower Award for an Emerging Writer, Queensland Literary Awards, 2018
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'White Powder' Third Prize, Estelle Pinney Short Story Competition, 2018
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'The Enthusiastic Amateur' Shortlisted SD Harvey Short Story Award, 2017 & Scarlet Stiletto Awards, 2016
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'Recess' Shortlisted Lane Cove Literary Awards, 2015
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'Savage Women' Winner Political Edge Prize Scarlet Stiletto Awards, 2014
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'Trailer Trash' Shortlisted Scarlet Stiletto Awards, 2012