Melanie Faranello is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in Swamp Pink, StoryQuarterly, Electric Literature, Hippocampus, Vol 1. Brooklyn, HuffPost Personal, Blackbird, StorySouth, Catamaran, Requited, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. Her stories and essays have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and her novel-in-progress won the Marianne Russo Award from Key West Literary Seminars and was shortlisted for the Dana Awards and the William Faulkner Wisdom Competition. She is also the founder of Poetry on the Streets, a community engagement project using creative writing for social impact. Recipient of an Artist Fellowship Award in Fiction from CT Office of Arts, and a Writer in Residence Award from Monson Arts, she holds her MFA in fiction from The New School. Originally from Chicago, she currently lives in West Hartford, CT with her family. Read more work at www.melaniefaranello.com