Manuel A. Melendez is a hybrid writer born and partially raised in Camagüey, Cuba. He was born at eight a.m. on April 10, 1988. It was a Sunday. His mother always liked to say that his birth was easy.
He immigrated to the United States with his parents on October 20, 1995; since then, he has lived in New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, and Alaska (in that order). Yes, he speaks fluent Spanish, though it is safe to say English is his dominant tongue. He speaks a little French aussi.
He received his Bachelor of Arts in English (with a concentration in Poetry and Playwriting) from Otterbein University (née College) and attended from September 2006 to May 2010. He will forever be proud of his freshman thesis: the first screenplay adaptation of Call Me by Your Name and a one-act play entitled A Light Rain.
After college, he joined the Peace Corps, serving as a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) instructor in Yantzaza in the Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador. He spent almost two full years in this place (from June 2011 to March 2013), colloquially known as the Valley of the Fireflies.
He taught a variety of students both in the Peace Corps and afterward, from elementary to middle school to high school-level classrooms. He also taught evenings as part of the Continuing Studies program at Miami-Dade College in Hialeah, Florida, using his TEFL experience to instruct adult immigrants in English-language learning. Some of his most memorable teaching happened at the Haugland Learning Center in Columbus, Ohio (it is now a member of the New Story Schools educational organization), where he worked with students on the autism spectrum and with behavioral and emotional challenges for almost three years.
He spent some time mulling over graduate school before an unpleasant experience at a private school finally provided the impetus to apply. After an unsuccessful first round, he was accepted to the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of New Orleans graduate programs. The first program, his dream choice, offered him a teaching assistantship and secured his yes. He spent almost three years there (from August 2022 to May 2025) soaking up the aurora, the magnificence of the polar sun, the welcomed dark of the endless winter, and the chance to finally hole up as far from home as he’d ever been to write, write, write.
His dive into the world of publishing during his internship at the University of Alaska Press while in grad school, not to mention his tenure as poetry editor, managing editor, and editor-in-chief of Permafrost Magazine, saw him fall in love with the ins and outs of acquisitions and the creation of literary magazines and projects.
He is currently shopping his manuscript, boyelegy, and sending out his dearly beloveds to be published and surrendered to the world at large.
