Author | Traveler | Storyteller

About Melody

Melody Sinclair graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Regis University in Denver, Colorado. She studied journalism and worked in marketing and advertising for over a decade. Melody has been published at Booth, KAIROS Literary Magazine, Verdad Magazine, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, Bull: Men’s Fiction, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Adanna Literary Journal, Avalon Literary Review, Blognostics, Prometheus Dreaming, Donnybrook Writing Academy, and 303 Magazine. She has won the Denver Women’s Press Club Unknown Writer’s Contest and was a two-time finalist in the Adelaide Literary Award Contest. She is on the Fiction Reading Committee for Carve Magazine.

Melody lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado with her husband, dog, and two kids. When she is not writing she is busy chauffeuring teenagers to and from activities, talking to her dog, battling Japanese beetles in the garden, and burning dinner.

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GRACE: A NOVEL

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Grace, a novel in progress

Lin-Lin Smith is a nine-year-old girl with three mothers, and she needs more. Her first mother died during labor. Her second mother, a live-in nanny named Lupe, is deported, leaving behind Virgin Mary figurines as Lin-Lin’s aloof third mother. Feeling abandoned, Lin-Lin vows to fight for a normal life by making a family, creating tribes. 

In a farming community where women are forced to be strong but also remain sexual objects, Lin-Lin struggles to define herself without the guidance of a mother. Navigating her teenage years with a snarky older brother, a statue for a mother, and an unavailable father, Lin-Lin seeks love from broken men. Walt, a predator who has groomed her since she was young, seems like viable option for a partner. Sam, Lin-Lin’s other love interest, is her age but mysterious trouble with his mother and step-mother keep him at an emotional distance. 

Grace is a coming of age story set over a decade in the late ’80s and early ’90s. It explores Colorado’s Eastern Plains and the religion, isolation, poverty, and superstitions that occupy the wind-torn towns dotting Interstate 70. Grace examines family and responsibility, communities and the abusers they shelter, and how loss and the search for love can force us into devastating choices.

FAVORITE BOOKS

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Arcadia by Lauren Groff

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Education

Regis University Mile High MFA, Denver

MFA in creative writing, 2019

out for Publication

grace: A Novel

Contact

Email: melodysin@comcast.net