It has most definitely not been a smooth road! If writing isn’t hard, you aren’t doing it right. Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome? Provocative, authentic, intimate, and uncompromising, Melissa Grunow casts light on the unspeakable: sexuality, death, mental illness, trauma, estrangement, and disillusionment with precision and fortitude. These twenty essays-ranging from conventional to lyrical to experimental in form and structure - delve into the root causes of personal uncertainty and the aftershock effects of being a woman in an unsafe world. To a family? Where do our senses of security and survival lie? This book ruthlessly investigates alienation during moments of transit and dislocation and their impact on women’s identity. What does it mean to belong? In a place? With a person? The writing seeks an absolute, yet illusive, truth in an ever-changing world within an uncertain understanding of self. Named one of the anticipated books of 2018 by The Coil, the journal of Alternating Current Press, I Don’t Belong Here is a collection of personal essays that examine situations that raised unanswerable questions, shoddy memories that shudder with remnants of doubt, and always a subtle sense of guilt that has surfaced from introspection and the passage of time. My second book, I Don’t Belong Here, will be published September 1.

Now, I am the author of the award-winning memoir, Realizing River City, which was published in 2016. I finally felt like a true writer when I had my first story accepted for publication in Wilderness House Literary Review in fall 2013. Throughout all those years, though, I felt like I was aspiring to be a writer, even though I was writing. I set the record at my high school for most writing awards won and went on to pursue writing in college and continued to craft short stories throughout graduate school. I always knew I wanted to create my own stories someday. I used to “read” books to my younger brother long before I could actually read. I started writing as early as I can remember because I always loved stories.

Melissa, please share your story with us.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Grunow.

Realizing River City by Melissa Grunow