Hi, I'm Melanie. I'm a nonfiction writer living on Kaurna Yerta in Adelaide, SA. I write about place and the body, solitude, belonging, and women who adventure. I hold a PhD in creative writing and I've taught life writing workshops at universities in South Australia and in Boston, Massachusetts. 

​

My nonfiction has been published in The New York Times, Meanjin, Southerly, Overland and Lip, and on wine bottles as part of the 2017 Overland/Story Wine Prize. In 2017, I received the inaugural highly commended award in the Australasian Association of Writing Programs Chapter One Prize, where my hybrid travel memoir was described by the judge as “fearless, imaginative, ‘transformative’ and unusual. This is a familiar world—but not one that is seen in a familiar way.”

​

Throughout 2018-2019 I spent time in the US as a writer-in-residence at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, California, and the Vermont Studio Center, Vermont, supported by the Australia Council for the Arts. 

​

In 2019 I was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights in Boston, Massachusetts, and have published academic articles on eco-autobiography and the intersection of nature and life writing.