Puerto Rican Writer
& Scholar
Welcome
I’m a writer and scholar based in the Caribbean. I write fiction, nonfiction and poetry. I also research the preservation of cultural memory in Caribbean literature.
Selected Work
Fiction
"My Bloody Socks" - Atticus Review
"Hotel La Plantación" - Catapult Magazine
Poetry
"Outside," Isla Libertá," "Smell of Colony" - PD Magazine
"Solo un sueño," Háblame del rosa," "Aclis" - Revista Kametsa
Nonfiction
"Warrior Foods" - Orion Magazine (El Nuevo Día feature/interview | El Adoquín Times feature)
"Con la mano en el pecho" - Puerto Rico Review
"The Storm is Taking it All" - The New York Times
"Why I Followed the Puerto Rican Dream" - Zora Magazine
My Book
La narrativa activista de Rosario Ferré: feminismo e identidad (McGraw Hill España)
Publicado por McGraw-Hill España, este libro es una relectura crítica que celebra la aportación temprana de Rosario Ferré al canon literario latinoamericano. Cada capítulo valora las heroínas modernas y multidimensionales, los entornos isleños que se transformaron a manos del colonizador y la vida de una escritora que en un momento se armó de valor para escribir en contra de las ideologías políticas de su poderosa familia.
Un bestseller bajo “Estudios de la mujer,” “Mujeres Escritoras,” y “Teoría Feminista” en Amazon.
Consíguelo con tapa blanda o para Kindle en Amazon.
Reseñas en: Claridad | Adoquín Times | Iberian Press | Medium
About
Melissa is a Puerto Rican writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Orion Magazine, Atticus Review, Catapult, and other publications. She contributed a chapter on environmental justice in Vieques, Puerto Rico, to The World We Need (The New Press, 2021), and published her first book, La narrativa activista de Rosario Ferré (McGraw-Hill Spain), in 2020. Melissa holds a master’s degree in Latin American literature from the University of Barcelona, an MFA in writing from Mountainview, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Caribbean literature. She was a Book Project fellow at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, where she later taught personal essay and memoir courses for years. She is now pitching her first poetry collection, a memoir in verse about life at sea, and writing an autobiographical novel that revisits her adolescence.