Lynn Melnick
Writer, Editor, and Professor
Biography
Lynn Melnick’s most recent book of poetry, I Deserve This, Thank You, received The Stern Prize from American Poetry Review and will be published by APR/Copper Canyon Press in April 2027.
She is the author of the memoir I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton, from the University of Texas Press’s American Music Series/Spiegel&Grau (October 2022).
She is also the author of three previous poetry collections, Refusenik (2022), the winner of the Julie Suk Award, and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award; Landscape with Sex and Violence (2017); and If I Should Say I Have Hope (2012), all with YesYes Books, and she is the co-editor of Please Excuse This Poem: 100 Poets for the Next Generation (Viking, 2015).
Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Poetry, The New Republic, Adroit Journal, A Public Space, and Paris Review. Her prose has appeared in Lit Hub, NYLON, West Branch, The Linden Review, air/light, LA Review of Books, and Women’s Media Center.
She has received grants from the Cafe Royal Cultural Society and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. A former fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and previously on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, she teaches poetry at Columbia University and Princeton University. Born in Indianapolis, she grew up in Los Angeles and currently lives in Brooklyn.
Published Works
I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (University of Texas Press, 2022)
Refusenik (YesYes Books, 2022)
Landscape with Sex and Violence (YesYes Books, 2022)
Please Excuse This Poem: 100 Poets for the Next Generation (Viking, 2015)
If I Should Say I Have Hope (YesYes Books, 2012)
Links to Sample Works
- American Poetry Review, “Refusenik”
- Poetry Foundation, poems & podcasts
- The New Yorker, “Landscape with Loanword and Solstice”
