Melanie Dusseau is a multi-genre writer, scholar, and creative writing professor from Toledo, Ohio. She holds an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and is the author of a poetry collection, The Body Tries Again, available from indie publisher Word Poetry. An associate professor of English at a private liberal arts college, she teaches literature as well as craft workshops in poetry, creative nonfiction, playwriting/screenwriting, and special topics like writing contemporary romance.

Her scholarly research overlaps with many creative projects and teaching interests, including: Celtic folklore & the female divine; weird fiction; reader response theory applied to writing craft; symbolism & setting in Appalachia; humor writing; feminist & political subtexts explored via the romance genre; AI resistance & skepticism in writing pedagogy; and Gingerology—the intersection of mythology & history with redheadedness.

You can walk right across her favorite publication: a poem stamped in concrete in her hometown, chosen as part of the Toledo Arts Commission’s Sidewalks Project—sure to survive the smoking, Orwellian hellscape of Ohio’s rustbelt. Additional poems have been featured on Verse Daily as well as appeared in journals such as: Atticus Review, Black Warrior Review, Passages North, Alaska Quarterly Review, DIAGRAM, and Wicked Alice, among others.

Melanie’s short play, “A House of Uncanny Repute,” was selected by the Toledo Repertoire Theater for their 2025 Toledo Voices playwright’s program. A screenplay penned during her MFA, Vintage, won first-place in the Richard M. Blumenberg Screenwriting Competition and placed several rounds into the Nicholl’s fellowship contest. She is a lover of dogs, trees, coffee, romance novels, and travel. During the school year, she serves as the faculty adviser to an undergraduate literary magazine, The Writers’ Kitchen.

A member of AWP and Chicago-North Romance Writers, Melanie has published several flash fiction stories in Woman’s World magazine, and is currently seeking representation from a literary agent for her debut novel, a genre-bending paranormal romance. When she’s not writing or teaching, you can find her giving in-person and remote craft talks and readings at wide-ranging events, including: Romance Con at the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, Chicago-North Romance Writers, Uncloistered, WritersShop Workshops, the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center, the Wood County Museum’s Tea & Talk series, and the Northwest Ohio Teen Book Festival.

She lives in a rambling before version of an historic fixer-upper with her husband and their rescue doggo, Ruby Ray Redfeather.