MELANIE FIGG - WRITER, TEACHER & PROFESSIONAL CERTIFIED COACH
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Some Recent Stuff: click on the image to read an essay

​​"How to Stop Being a Survivor" in ENOUGH at The Rumpus 
(Scroll to the last essay at the bottom of the webpage)
"Monsters" at Hippocampus Magazine  

Iron Horse Trifecta Winner: Leaving A Trace

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View Poem on Issuu
Geffrey Davis selected "Leaving a Trace" as the 2018 winner of the poetry Trifecta - an annual competition from The Iron Horse Literary Review for a long poem presented in a lovely e-book edition.

"In this haunting poem, Figg explores the discovery of patient/inmate remains in an abandoned asylum, now the Oregon State Hospital Museum of Mental Health in Salem, Oregon. In partnership with time, the poem says, we continue to confine, forget, and ignore the people who once lived here. The poem also makes use of David Maisel's beautiful series of photographs depicting the canisters, 
Library of Dust."


Contributor, 2025 GRIT & Gravity edited by Melissa Scholes Young

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​I'm very proud to have my essay, Serenade, included in GRIT & Gravity, the 11th volume of the Grace and Gravity anthology series, a literary journal devoted to women writers in the DC region. Grit & Gravity features 38 fiction and nonfiction pieces about personal triumphs, resilience, bravery in the face of danger, and ultimately, hope. 

Contributor, 2022 and if that mockingbird don't sing: Parenting Stories Gone Speculative edited by Hannah Grieco

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​I'm delighted to be part of this rich, angry, honest, wonderful collection, and if that mockingbird don't sing: Parenting Stories Gone Speculative, edited by Hannah Grieco (alternating current press, 2022) - a terrific collection of 75 flash pieces from 76 authors.

My hermit crab in this collection - “step·moth·er (step-muhth-er)” - was nominated by the editors of Alternating Current Press for Best Microfiction 2023. 



Contributor, 2021 The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft edited by Diane Lockward

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Named one of the Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers!

I'm proud to be part of this wonderful craft collection, The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft edited by Diane Lockward (Terrapin Books, 2021), in which I offer commentary on a particular craft element (hyperbole!) in my poem, "A Rogue Dream."

The Strategic Poet is chock-full of wonderful poets (Ellen Bass, Diane Suess, Ada Limon, Camille Dungy, and more!) offering craft talks, model poems, and prompts. It's a wonderful book for the poets in your life, or a nice treat for yourself.
​

Some Online Writings

"Queechee Gorge" in A-Minor Magazine

"Piano Recital No. 1" in Cider Press Review

Three prose poems in The Doubleback Review!  

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Six prose poems in The Mackinaw Review!  

"Haiku for a Young Mother" in coop zine #4 

"First Bike Ride" in Rogue Agent, issue 92 - Nominated for Best of the Net!

"Dear Jim" - and an audio recording of me reading the poem, are in The Rappahannock Review, along with an interview with the editors.

"A Rogue Dream" - featured on the Academy of American Poets for their Poem-A-Day & Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

The hermit crab "Home for Rent" in The American Journal of Poetry
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Three poems from by book Trace were re-printed in Soul-Lit: "After she returns, One Way Loneliness Falls, and Regardless of what is there to be seen"

"Rivercrest" is at Your Impossible Voice

 "Dry Season" in Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art

"Winter's Toll" in ONE ART

"Souvenir" and "Annunciate" in Amethyst Review

A prose poem in Lines + Stars

My long poem, “Leaving a Trace,” won the Iron Horse Literary Review’s 2018 Trifecta, and is available as a beautiful, free e-single.

“Untitled” in Nimrod - Finalist for the 35th Nimrod Literary Awards~Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry

My collaboration with visual artist, Yumi Hirokawa: “The Secret of Bells” and "Belonging"

Two poems in So To Speak

Four poems – with audio recording - in Menacing Hedge 

“Almost Enough to Navigate By” in The Ekphrastic Review

“Belonging” in The Ekphrastic Review 
​
My review of Dana Levin's terrific debut In the Surgical Theatre in Rain Taxi

Poetry Chapbook

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​Hurry, Love  is a chapbook collaboration
with paper artist/metal worker, Doug Abbott.
In workingman and fine arts editions.
(Fuori Editions, 2014.)  Sold Out.

Thanks to the editors of these literary journals where my work is published

Academy of American Poets, ache, American Journal of Poetry, Amethyst Review, A-Minor Magazine, Cider Press Review, Colorado Review, Conduit, coop zine, Crab Creek Review, Crab Orchard Review, Crania, Doubleback Review, Ekphrastic Review, Evergreen Chronicles, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Fuori, Grit & Gravity, Hippocampus, Ilahot Review, Iron Horse Literary Review (winner of the 2018 Trifecta), Iowa Review, Lines + Stars, LIT 9,  Luna, Mackinaw Review, Many Mountains Moving,  Margie (aka American Journal of Poetry), Menacing Hedge, Mezzo Cammin, Mid-American Review, The MOON Magazine,  Muddy River Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, Nimrod, One Art, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts, Poet Lore,  Quarterly West, Rappahannock Review, Rise Up Review, River Oak Review, Rogue Agent, The Rumpus, Saranac Review,  Sinister Wisdom,  So to Speak, Sonora Review,  Soul-Lit, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Swerve, Your Impossible Voice, Water~Stone, Whale Road Review, Womanmade Gallery

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Melanie Figg is supported in part by funding from the Montgomery County Government and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County


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Based in Washington, DC with service worldwide
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  • Home
  • Work with Melanie
    • Classes & Workshops
    • The Writing Hive: A Mastermind Creativity Group
    • 1:1 Coaching
    • 1:1 Writing Reviews
    • Application Essays
  • Events & Work
    • Readings & Events
    • Books
    • Other Writings
    • Buy a copy of Trace
  • About Melanie
    • Bio
    • Awards & Recognitions
    • Praise as a Coach
  • Blog
    • PRIVATE