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Melissa Scholes Young Professor Literature

Degrees
BA, MA, MFA

Bio
Melissa Scholes Young is the author of the award-winning novels Flood and The Hive. She received the Shelf Unbound Best Book Award in 2021 and the Next Generation Indie Book Award in 2023. She’s published two chapbooks of fiction, Scrap Metal Baby and Guinea Pig. She serves as Editor of Grace in Darkness, Furious Gravity, and Grace in Love, anthologies by women writers and directs the From the Attic online series. Her work has appeared in the Atlantic, Ms., Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, and Believer Magazine. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Bakeless Camargo Foundation, the Center for Mark Twain Studies, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Humanities Truck. Born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri, she is a Professor in the Literature Department of American University where she directs the undergraduate creative writing program.
See Also
Melissa Scholes Young's website
Melissa Scholes Young @Twitter
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

AU Experts

Area of Expertise

Creative writing, rural literature, anthologies, book to film adaptations, rural-urban divide, Midwestern literature, Mark Twain studies, family business, class in America, Mississippi River culture, survivalist communities, women writers, book critics

Additional Information

Melissa Scholes Young is the author of the novels The Hive and Flood, and editor of Grace in Darkness and Furious Gravity, two anthologies by women writers. She is a contributing editor at Fiction Writers Review, and her work has appeared in the Atlantic, Ms., The Believer, Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Ploughshares, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. She has been the recipient of the Bread Loaf Bakeless Camargo Foundation Residency Fellowship and the Center for Mark Twain Studies' Quarry Farm Fellowship. She was born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri.

For the Media

To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

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