Maile Meloy (born January 1, 1972) is an American fiction writer.

Early life and education

Born and raised in Helena, Montana, Meloy received a bachelor's degree from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

in 1994 and an MFA from the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

Career

Meloy won ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phil ...

Aga Khan Prize for Fiction The Aga Khan Prize for Fiction was awarded by the editors of ''The Paris Review'' for what they deem to be the best short story published in the magazine in a given year. The last prize was given in 2004. No applications were accepted. The winner ...

for her story "Aqua Boulevard" in 2001; the

PEN/Malamud Award The PEN/Malamud Award and Memorial Reading honors "excellence in the art of the short story", and is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The selection committee is composed of PEN/Faulkner directors and representatives of Bernard Ma ...

for her first collection of short stories, ''Half in Love'', in 2003; and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004. In 2007,

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

included her on its list of the 21 "Best Young American Novelists." Her work has appeared in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', and she is a frequent contributor to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Describing how she wrote "Half in Love," Meloy is quoted on the

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bos ...

web site as saying, "What I wound up with was a book that was set in different decades, partly in Montana—and those stories were some of the hardest to write, because it's the place I’m closest to—and partly in other places, in London and Paris and Greece. So it had very little temporal or geographical unity, but the characters are all caught between one thing and another, half in love with something or someone, when life deals them something they didn’t expect." In 2015, two stories from Meloy's collection ''Half in Love'' ("Tome" and "Native Sandstone") and one story from ''Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It'' ("Travis, B.") were adapted into the movie '' Certain Women'' directed by Kelly Reichardt. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 and was released by

IFC Films IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its ...

in October 2016. A story from the book was also featured on ''

This American Life ''This American Life'' (''TAL'') is an American monthly hour-long radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internatio ...

s 2016 Christmas episode, read aloud by Meloy. Meloy served on the writing staff of the Netflix series '' The Society'', which premiered in 2019.

Personal life

Meloy is the older sister of

Colin Meloy Colin Patrick Henry Meloy (born October 5, 1974) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and author best known as the frontman of the Portland, Oregon, indie folk rock band The Decemberists. In addition to vocals, he performs with an acoust ...

, frontman of

The Decemberists The Decemberists are an American indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. The band consists of Colin Meloy (lead vocals, guitar, principal songwriter), Chris Funk (guitar, multi-instrumentalist), Jenny Conlee (piano, keyboards, accordion), Nate ...

, solo artist, and author of The Wildwood Chronicles novels '' Wildwood'', '' Under Wildwood'' and '' Wildwood Imperium''. Their aunt, the late

Ellen Meloy Ellen Meloy (June 21, 1946, Pasadena, California – November 4, 2004, Bluff, Utah) was an American nature writer. Life She was born Ellen Louise Ditzler in Pasadena, California. She graduated from Goucher College with a degree in art, and ...

, was also an author. Maile Meloy lives in Los Angeles.

Works

* ''Half in Love: Stories'' (2002) * ''Liars and Saints'' (2003) * ''A Family Daughter'' (2006) * ''Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It: Stories'' (2009) * '' The Apothecary Series (books)'' ** ''The Apothecary'' (2011) ** ''The Apprentices'' (2013) ** ''The After-Room'' (2015) * '' Do not become alarmed ''(2017)

Short fiction

* * *

References

External links

Archival collections

Guide to the Maile Meloy Collection MS.L.019.
Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Other

InterviewOfficial Web site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meloy, Maile 1972 births Living people 21st-century American novelists American women short story writers American women novelists Harvard College alumni People from Helena, Montana Writers from Los Angeles University of California, Irvine alumni Writers from Montana 21st-century American women writers PEN/Malamud Award winners 21st-century American short story writers