Melissa Reddish (Fiction) | Salisbury, MD

Melissa Reddish graduated with an MFA from American University in 2008. Her short stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in both print and online journals, including decomP, Prick of the Spindle, and Northwind, among others. She is the author of a chapbook of flash fiction entitled The Distance Between Us (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2013), a book of short stories entitled My Father is an Angry Storm Cloud: Collected Stories (Tailwinds Press, July 2015), and a hybrid novella-in-flashes entitled Girl & Flame (Conium Press, 2016). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Web. In 2013, she received a Soaring Gardens Artist Residency, and in 2016, a Rensing Residency. She teaches English and direct the Honors Program at Wor-Wic Community College.

Books

Chapbooks

• The Distance Between Us (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2013). Flash Fiction.

Blurbs, Press & Reviews

“Melissa Reddish’s latest tour de force, Girl & Flame, is a haunting flash novella/verse-narrative that blends magical realism and psychological drama into a startling love story about madness that is, at turns, both crude and courtly.”
–Laura Ellen Scott, author of The Juliet and Death Wishing

“Short sharp fragments of flame build an entire world that is hard to look away from. Reddish’s prose dazzles and burns. It’s a fire that’s impossible to ignore. Girl & Flame reverberates with danger and foreboding, masked in an expert language that only Reddish can harness.”
–Sarah Rose Etter, author of Tongue Party

“A blowtorch of modern death and rebirth, Girl & Flame tries to contain ‘the girl who burned her father, brother, lover’ and the animistic fire that snaps and pops within. Reddish has forged an incendiary and highly readable hybrid prose. Keep the fire extinguisher handy.”
–Mel Bosworth, author of Freight and co-author of Camouflage Country

“In Girl & Flame Reddish successfully brings an inferno to life. A daunting but dazzling blend of harsh reality and an eerie fantasy.”
–Daisy English, reviewer for Sabotage Reviews

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