About
Melanie Pappadis Faranello is the author of the award-winning story collection, Everybody Needs Something, which received the 2025 Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Swamp Pink, StoryQuarterly, Electric Literature, Hippocampus, Vol 1. Brooklyn,HuffPost Personal, Blackbird, Catamaran and elsewhere, and have been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. Her novel-in-progress won an Emerging Writer Award from Key West Literary Seminars, shortlisted for the Dana Awards and William Faulkner's Wisdom Competition. She holds her MFA in creative writing from The New School and has attended Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers Conferences. She received of an Artist Fellowship from CT Office of the Arts and a Writer-in-Residence Awards from Monson Arts and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. Originally from Chicago, she lives in West Hartford, CT, where she is at work on a novel.
She is also the creator of Poetry on the Streets, a recognized project engaging communities in creative self-expression and bringing people's words into public spaces. A Creative Community Fellow with National Arts Strategies and global-cohort member of The Pollination Project's Greenhouse, for artist change-makers, Melanie is involved with many non-profit orgs working for social impact through the arts.
As a teaching artist, she has taught widely over two decades in NYC, Chicago, Hartford, and facilitated and developed workshops in various communities and in collaboration with multiple organizations and institutions. She is an active teaching artist in the Hartford community. Her international experience includes teaching in Cuenca, Ecuador and conducting field research on oral folklore in Nepal.
She is the founder of the original Sunday Salon Chicago Reading Series (2004) and the new Hartford series, Sonder Reading Series (2026).
Her belief in creative writing and stories as a vehicle for connection and a means to explore human experiences is the thread that connects her community engagement work with her work as a writer.
To work with Melanie, visit the Contact Page.
Winner of the Donald L Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, Columbus State University Press, March 2026
Interview in Chicago Review of Books
Interview in How We Spend Our Days
Interviews
Poets & Writers, Winners on Winning, Sept.2025
Black Lawrence Press, Sapling, Dec. 2025
Chicago Review of Books, March 2026
How We Spend Our Days, April 2026
Bloom Literary, Debuting After Fifty, April 2026
Cleaver Magazine, June 2026
Radio
NRP/CT Public Radio, "Where We Live," April 2026 : "Exploring Poetry's Power to Connect CT's Communities"
NPR/CT Public Radio, "Where We Live," May 20221: Poetry on the Streets
NPR/CT Public Radio, "All Things Considered," May 2021 : "The Poetry Bus"
CV
Teaching Artist: Creative Writing (Fiction, Novel, Poetry, Storytelling, Zine Making, Literacy Arts Workshops)
- Youth/Teens:
- City School of the Arts, Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford, CT, 2016-Present
- Hartford Performs, Public School Visiting Artist, Hartford, CT, 2018-Present
- Real ArtWays, Art in the Parks Camp, Hartford, CT 2021-2023
- CT Center for NonViolence, Visiting Artist, Hartford, CT 2022-2024
- Kingswood Oxford School Summer Camp, West Hartford, CT, 2017, 2023, 2024
- Connecticut Humanities Council: YWCA, Hartford, CT, 2014
- Adults:
- The Mark Twain House, Hartford, CT, 2013, 2015
- Federation Square Housing Senior Housing, West Hartford, CT, 2013
- Story Studio Chicago, Chicago IL, 2007-2010
- University of Chicago, Graham School of General Studies, Novel Writing, Chicago, IL, 2008-2009
- Gallery 37 After School Matters, Chicago
Adjunct Professor: (English, Composition, Literature, Reading and Writing, ESL)
- Goodwin College, E. Hartford, CT, 2014-15
- Roosevelt University, Chicago 2023-2025
- American Academy of Art, Chicago, 2023-2025
- Int’l Academy of Design, Chicago, 2003-2005
- Katherine Gibbs College, New York City, 2002-2003
- Parsons School of Design, New York City, 2002
- Centro de Estudios Interamericanos, Cuenca, Ecuador
Professional Affiliations:
- Juror for Ragdale Writing Residencies, 2026
- Founder of Sonder Reading Series, Hartford, CT 2026-Present
- Creative Community Fellow, National Arts Strategies, 2019-Present
- Artist Network & Story Exchange Facilitator, Narrative 4, 2023-2024
- Juror for Key West Literary Seminars Emerging Writer Awards, 2023
- Grantee Community & Greenhouse Global Cohort, The Pollination Project, 2022
- Artist Advisory Committee, Greater Hartford Arts Council, Hartford, CT, 2020-2022
- Hartford Events Grants Advisory Panel, CT, 2019
- Advisor for Grant Applications, Free Center, 2021
- Founder, Sunday Salon Chicago Reading Series, 2006
- CONFERENCES
- Panelist & Moderator, “Radical Empathy: Writing as a Form of Resistance,” Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), Seattle, WA, 2023
- Panelist and Creator, “Debuting After Fifty,” AWP, Baltimore
- Key West Literary Seminar, Full Merit Scholarship
- Wesleyan Writers Conference, Full Merit Scholarship
- Sewanee Writers Conference
- Bread Loaf Writers Conference
- AWARDS · Winner of Donald L Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, 2025· Writer-in-Residence, Monson Arts, 2024· Writer-in-Residence, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, 2024· Artist Responds Grant for Community Healing, Office of the Arts, CT, 2024 & 2020· Pushcart Prize Nomination, 2023 & 2013· Emerging Writer Award for Novel-in-Progress, Key West Literary Seminars, 2022· Artist Fellowship Award in Fiction, Office of the Arts, CT, 2018· William Faulkner-Wisdom Competition in Novel, finalist, 2018· Petrochor Reprint Award, shortlisted, 2018
- Publications, Interviews, and Education: See Bio