Megan Denese Mealor

Poet

Jacksonville, FL
Florida US

Author's Bio

I currently reside in my graffiti-hearted hometown of Jacksonville, Florida with my husband of 12 years and our 10-year-old son, who was diagnosed with autism at age three. I myself have suffered from bipolar disorder most of my life, so mental health is an incredibly important topic for me and is reflected and interwoven into much of my work. While writing is and always has been my life's greatest passion as well as my saving grace, my most important achievement is my beautiful, angel-hearted son. I adore animals and run my own business, Krazy Kat Lady Pet-Sitting, while being the proud mother of three mollycoddled rescue cats Trigger, Lulu, and Hobbes. I am currently learning Spanish and American Sign Language because I love words and communication and locution. In order to better myself, I'm also taking women's self-defense classes, experimenting with photography, planting rose bushes and wax begonias, re-reading the perennial classics (the Brontes, Jane Austen, ee cummings, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe), and volunteering hours and lovely hours at a local animal shelter. My son is my very best friend, and we do absolutely everything together, from pointing out manatees at Mandarin Park's dock to laying on the rushing sand at Vilano Beach to checking out the way-too-realistic dinosaur exhibit at MOSH. As a quintessential Pisces, my dreamy nature has fortunately translated into a dreamy life.

Publications & Prizes

Anthology:
Tales From the Deep (The Writer's Workout, 2023)
Books:
A Mourning Dove's Wishbone (Cyberwit.net, 2022)
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Bipolar Lexicon (Unsolicited Press, 2018)
Journals:
A Long Story Short
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Across the Margin
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Adelaide Literary Magazine
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Belle Reve Literary Journal
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Bewildering Stories
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Black Heart Magazine
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Boned: A Collection of Skeletal Writings
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Brazos River Review
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Breath and Shadow
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Brown Bag
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Chantarelle's Notebook
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Chantwood Magazine
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Children Churches & Daddies
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Danse Macabre
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Dark Moon Digest
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Digging Through the Fat
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Down in the Dirt
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First Literary Review-East
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Fogged Clarity
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For the Sonorous
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Four and Twenty
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Front Porch Review
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Harbinger Asylum
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io Literary Journal
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Linnet's Wings
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Liquid Imagination
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Literally Stories
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Midnight Circus
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Nebo
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Northwest Indiana Literary Journal
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Obsessed With Pipework
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Penumbric
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Picaroon Poetry
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Poetry Life & Times
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Raw Art Review
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Really System
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River Poets Journal
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Riverbabble
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Skidrow Penthouse
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Soul-Lit
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South Shore Review
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Spillwords Press
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Streetcake Magazine
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The Disappointed Housewife
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The Lake
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The Stray Branch
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Third Wednesday
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Typehouse Literary Magazine
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Unlikely Stories
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Van Gogh's Ear
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Voices for Peace
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Wax Poetry and Art
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Prizes won: 
  • 2003 - National Penwomen's Association Literature Award for High School Graduate
  • 2003 - National Arts Recognition Competition Short Story Merit Award
  • 2003 - Douglas Anderson School of the Arts' Creative Writing Bravo Award
  • 2005 - FSCJ American Short Story Competition - First Place
  • 2018 - Wax Poetry Arts Weekly Poetry Contest - First Place, February
  • 2018 - Pushcart Prize nomination for the poem ''Before the Beginning'', published by Liquid Imagination
  • 2018 - Pushcart Prize nomination for the poem ''Your Grandfather's Cottage'', published by Neologism Poetry Journal
  • 2018 - November 2018 Poet of the Month by Neologism Poetry Journal
  • 2022 - Pushcart Prize nomination for the poem ''Painting Party at an Indian Restaurant'', published by The Disappointed Housewife
  • 2022 - Nominated for the 2023 Best of the Net for the poem "Painting Party at an Indian Restaurant" 

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
Pablo Neruda, ee cummings, Ezra Pound, Emily Dickinson, Janet Finch, Angela Carter, Francesca Lia Block, Stephen King, Joan Didion, Anne Rice, Anne Rule, Amy Hempel, Agatha Christie, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Doty, Bob Dylan, Sylvia Plath, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Shel Silverstein, Arthur Golden, Lewis Carroll, Alice Sebold, Jane Austen, The Bronte Sisters, Margaret Mitchell, Maya Angelou, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Gillian Flynn, Toni Morrison
What I'm reading now: 
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, Waking Beauty by Elyse Friedman, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda, White Oleander by Janet Finch, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
American, Celtic American
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Fluent in: 
English, Spanish
Born in: 
Jacksonville, FL
Florida
Raised in: 
Jacksonville, FL
Florida
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Jul 19, 2024