Melanie Rae Thon


Melanie Rae Thon is an American fiction writer known for work that moves beyond and between genres, erasing the boundaries between them as it explores diversity, permeability, and interdependence from a multitude of human and more-than-human perspectives.

Biography

Thon was born in Kalispell, Montana. She received a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan in 1980 and an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University in 1982. She has taught at Emerson College, the University of Massachusetts Boston, Syracuse University, Ohio State University, and the University of Utah, where she is Professor Emeritus.

Writing

Thon's most recent books, chapbooks, and fine art editions are As If Fire Could Hide Us ; Silence & Song ; The 7th Man ; The Bodies of Birds ; Lover ; and The Good Samaritan Speaks. She is also the composer of the novels The Voice of the River ; Sweet Hearts ; Meteors in August ; and Iona Moon ; and the story collections In This Light ; Girls in the Grass ; and First, Body. Her work has been included in Best American Short Stories ; three Pushcart Prize Anthologies ; and O. Henry Prize Stories. In 1996, Granta included Thon on its list of the Twenty Best Young American Novelists. Thon's fiction has been translated into French, Italian, German, Spanish, Croatian, Finnish, Japanese, Arabic, and Persian.

Awards

Thon is a recipient of a Fellowship in Creative Arts from The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a Whiting Writer's Award, the Hopwood Award, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Book Award, the Gina Berriault Award, and a Lannan Foundation Writer's Residency in Marfa, Texas. In 2009, she was Virgil C. Aldrich Fellow at the Tanner Humanities Center.

Works

Books

Meteors in August. Random House. 1990. ISBN 978-0-394-57664-0
  • *"Little White Sister," Originally Published in Ploughshares, Winter 1993-1994
  • *"Xmas, Jamaica Plain," Originally Published in Granta 54: Best of Young American Novelists, Summer 1996In This Light: New and Selected Stories. Graywolf Press. 2011. As If Fire Could Hide Us. Fiction Collective 2. 2023. ISBN 978-1573662000 ISBN 978-1573662000

Fictions, Nonfictions, & Poetry

  • “,” Literary Hub, Apr 2023
  • “,” Conjunctions, Feb 2023
  • “All Her Beautiful Children,” ': No. 115: 7 – 8. 2023
  • “Breaking Light”; "MRI: the brain”; “If Birds Were Water”; “Dearest”; “I am awash,” ': Vol. 21, No. 2: 58 – 63. 2022
  • “,” Agni.
  • “,” AGNI, July 2018
  • “” Five Points, Vol 40, Spring 2013
  • “Music & Meaning,” Architectures of Possibility: After Innovative Fiction, edited by Trevor Dodge and Lance Olsen, Guide Dog Books, 2012
  • “,” Glimmer Train, Bulletin 56, 2011
  • ",” Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2008
  • “,” SmokeLong Quarterly, Sept 2006
  • "Tu B'Shvat: for the Drowned and the Saved," ', Spring 2006
  • "Confession for Raymond Good Bird," ', Jan 2006
  • "Love Song for Tulanie Rey,"  ',  Jan 2006
  • "," One Story, Issue 40, June 2004
  • "Dangerous Discoveries," The Pushcart Prize Anthology XXVII, Jan 2003
  • ," Image, Nov 2002
  • "The River Woman's Son," ', Spring 1997
  • "," The ''Paris Review,  Fall 1994
  • "Little White Sister," ', Winter 1993
  • "Punishment," ', Winter 1990
  • "Catch You Later," '', Fall 1987