Melinda Wilson is Managing Editor of Coldfront Magazine and Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Manhattan College. She is author of Amplexus, a chapbook from Dancing Girl Press, published in 2010. A graduate of The New School’s MFA program and the doctoral program at Florida State University, she has published poems in Diner, Burnside Review, Valley Voices, Agriculture Reader, Verse Daily, The Cincinnati Review and The Wisconsin Review among many others. She co-curates the Poor Mouth Reading Series in Riverdale and Razor Blade Readings in Inwood. Melinda lives in the Bronx.
Here’s Quick Temper with Melinda:
Why do you write?
I suppose I write because it feels good. Not to sound all hedonistic about it, but it’s a pleasurable unburdening to write. Besides pleasure, I write to work through life’s perplexing moments. It helps me to better understand my own position in the world. I guess, in some ways, I write as a way to get to know myself better.
Who do you hope reads your work?
Anyone and everyone is the short answer.
Where does the anger in your work come from? How does it manifest?
I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t angry. It’s a deeply embedded part of my human experience, my experience as a woman and as a person with a chronic illness.
Angry book recommendations for angry readers?
Right now, my best angry book recommendation would be Rebecca Traister’s Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. It’s life-changing.
Melinda Wilson will be reading with An Angry Reading Series on September 14, 2019. Come through!
