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 for eight years as a disaster field responder and emergency manager in cities such as 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, Saccharum, and Creative Colloquy, among others. She was recently published in a spot for The Masters Review. She has a forthcoming chapbook, “By and By,” with n.o.t.a. press.

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

Melanie’s short story, Honeybee, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by PHIL LIT Journal in 2025.

Melanie has also appeared on Radio Tacoma’s SoundPoetry and in the Fall of Freedom - Voices of Protest event.

Melanie co-edits an online literary journal, The Faoileánach Journal, with its fifth issue due out in June 2026.