melanie writes

Melanie Cole writes raw stories, personal essays, and investigative pieces addressing social issues including mental illness, race, police violence, social stigma, and medical malpractice.

Melanie holds a degree in International Relations from Richmond, The American International University in London. She served in an eight-year career as a disaster field responder and emergency manager in cities like New Orleans, Louisiana, and Seattle, Washington. She has been a private writer her whole life, but was encouraged by a colleague to send in a pitch to Tacoma’s Grit City Magazine for a story idea.

Melanie has been published in Grit City Magazine, Dandelion Revolution Press, PHIL LIT Journal, on The Mighty, in the Tacoma News Tribune, in Black Coffee Poetry, and Saccharum, among others. Her poem, “God Bless The Bottom Feeders,” earned an honorable mention in the “Things I Wrote Down” poetry contest.

She has published four poetry chapbooks— Ocean Songs, Selkies, God Bless the Bottom Feeders, and //maybe blue, all of which debuted in 2025. Her debut book, BALDWIN, came out in October of 2025.

Melanie also runs an online literary journal, The Faoileánach Journal, with its third issue due out December 2025.