I’m Melissa. I am 27 and graduated in May 2007 with a Bachelor’s in English at a small, private liberal arts college. Then I graduated from law school in May of 2011. I’ve been writing a reimagining of the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland stories since 2007. I consider myself an Escapist, and my favorite genres are magical realism and the Picaresque.
Jonathan Swift and Matthew Arnold had this idea about bees, that they are the noblest creatures because they produce the two things that bring the most productive and useful happiness in the world: honey and candle wax, or sweetness and light. One of my favorite authors is P.G. Wodehouse, a British humorist who created a character named Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred was known to create a lot of mischief but have a damn good time messing up and subsequently straightening out people’s lives. He lived by this personal code that told him to “spread sweetness and light.”
I got the saying tattooed on my hip because the phrase was originally about honeybees, and not just spreading goodwill and a sunny nature around to other people. Melissa is Greek for “honeybee”, and so the circle closes. After a summer spent in Oxford, I came home and had some artwork added in the form of cherry blossom branches with a honeybee on top. That part took about 5 cumulative hours and hurt like hell.
If you are curious to know more about me, here are a few random facts. I’m left handed. I went to an elementary school with an immersion program, so I learned everything in Spanish for several years and lived in Mexico for a little bit. I spent a semester in London, then another in Oxford, and really enjoyed both trips. I like photography, bowling, needlepoint and knitting, but not in an ironic way. I like painting by numbers, but have little patience for it. I’m a fast typer. I spend a lot of time inside my own head. I listen to operetta and electronica mashups, enjoy fandom culture with no small amount of shame but the greatest enthusiasm, and seem to have a love for late 80s/early 90s mystery-comedies. I think David Lynch is legitimately gorgeous and I paint my fingernails a different color every day.
