California born novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist, Melissa Pritchard is the author of ten books of fiction, an essay collection and a biography. A recipient of numerous awards including the Flannery O’Connor and Carl Sandburg Awards, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Barnes and Noble “Discover” Prize, an National Endowment for the Arts grant, three Pushcart and two O.Henry Prizes, Melissa’s fiction has appeared in over sixty literary journals, including The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Ecotone, The Georgia Review, A Public Space, STORY and Agni. Her non-fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, The Wilson Quarterly, The Nation, The Gettysburg Review, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times and O, The Oprah Magazine. Melissa’s essay collection, A Solemn Pleasure, was an Amazon Bestseller, a Poets and Writers “Best Books for Writers” and a Lit Hub’s “Best Book about Books” selection. She was a 2025 Georgia Author of the Year finalist for her widely praised biographical novel about Florence Nightingale, Flight of the Wild Swan.
Founder of the Ashton Goodman Fund through the former Afghan Women’s Writing Project, Melissa has traveled as a journalist on humanitarian missions to Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Ecuador, Thailand and India. She has received writing fellowships from the Howard Foundation at Brown University, the Hawthornden Foundation, Scotland, the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation, Switzerland, the Bogliasco Foundation, Italy and was, most recently a Carson McCullers Fellow in Columbus, Georgia, where she now lives. A Professor Emerita of English and Women’s Studies at Arizona State University, where she received awards for her teaching, Melissa has, until recently, served as Fiction Editor for IMAGE Journal: Art, Faith and Mystery and still teaches “Art and Transformation: The Power of Creativity,” to M.A. and PhD students through the Wisdom School at Ubiquity University.
Married late in life to a retired surgeon, Melissa has two grown daughters and is currently attempting, with little success, to persuade her jealous cat, Miss Florence, to consider the joys of one day sharing her home and her mistress with a miniature dachshund.
Regal House Publishing is proud to publish Melissa’s novel Tempest: The Story of Fanny Anne Kemble in 2027.
