Melanie Bell

Author: Inspire Envisioning

  • Book review: A Consuming Fire by Laura E. Weymouth

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    “I don’t want to be an offering, she thought with a new and sharp urgency. I never have, nor a prayer, either. I will be a knife in the dark or nothing, no matter the cost.” –A Consuming Fire, Laura E. Weymouth What would you do if a god killed your sister? For Anya Astraea,…

  • NaNoWriMo Was a Wild Time

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    I started NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this November as an incentive to finish my fantasy novel, the one I’d been working on for a year and a half. At 55,000 words in, it was rolling along toward a conclusion, but it hadn’t gotten there yet. When I applied last year for a grant I…

  • Oh, the Drama!

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    These last couple months have been exciting ones for my short play, The Pictures of Dora Gray. I’ve seen it read by two different casts. And at the end of the month, I’ll see it performed at the Tower Theatre’s Writers’ Room showcase. In Oscar Wilde’s classic novel, The Pictures of Dorian Gray, a young…

  • My Play Is in a December Showcase

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    The Tower Theatre has become one of my favorite places in London. It’s that rare thing, an amateur theatre company with its own performance space. The plays are diverse and high quality, ranging from Shakespearean comedies to contemporary theatre about the Black British experience, from intimate monologue series to expansive productions like Coram Boy. I’ve…

  • An Author Interview and a Writing Retreat in France

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    I’m delighted to have an author interview on Autostraddle this month! Darcy read my YA novel, Chasing Harmony, and asked thoughtful questions about it. I got to talk about music, the messiness of growing up queer, where I got my ideas, and what songs might be on Anna’s playlist right now if she were a…

  • Chasing Harmony Playlist, Trailer, and Publication

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    Chasing Harmony, my YA novel about a musical prodigy, is now out in paperback! Here I am with my box of author copies. My publisher, Read Furiously, did a wonderful job putting the book together, including little music-related details in the design. They are also donating a portion of proceeds to literacy organizations. It was…

  • My Novel Chasing Harmony Is Out July 19!

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    In 2009, I started writing a novel while traveling across Canada. I was thinking about art and failure and how life seldom meets our expectations. I finished the manuscript while studying Creative Writing at Concordia University in Montreal, went through several drafts, and over a decade later, I’m delighted that the book found a home.…

  • The Story in Your Head vs. the Story on the Page

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    Before you sit down at your computer or with your notebook to start writing, a story swirls around in your head. It’s the story you want to write, the story you need to write. And the story in your head is fabulous.  The story in your head is as twisty and passionate as the latest…

  • Writing for a Day Job While Writing for Myself

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    I used to think I had limited energy for writing, and partly for this reason, I avoided day jobs that directly involved writing. I taught writing, edited, and on the side, I wrote and published. Then I started a blog for an editing job that focused on guiding authors through the writing process, and I…

  • Book Review: The Gold Persimmon by Lindsay Merbaum

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    Looking for some queer, feminist horror? The Gold Persimmon is a new novel full of lush, surreal hotels, precise language, and chilling threats that haunt the characters gradually.   Two stories cross paths in this book. The first, a third-person framing narrative that starts and ends the book, focuses on a young woman named Clytemnestra who…