Melissa Studdard
Melissa Studdard is the author of five books, including the poetry collections Dear Selection Committee and I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, the poetry chapbook Like a Bird with a Thousand Wings, and the young adult novel Six Weeks to Yehidah. Her work has been featured by NPR, PBS, The New York Times, The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, Best American Poetry, and Houston Matters, and has also appeared in a wide variety of periodicals, such as POETRY, Kenyon Review, Psychology Today, New Ohio Review, Harvard Review, New England Review, and Poets & Writers.
As a librettist/lyricist, she has had works commissioned by Aspen Music Festival, Yale University Glee Club and Yale Choral Artists, Wolf Trap, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Nicolò Spera, the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, and Art Philly, and her pieces have been performed by Exigence Vocal Ensemble, The Washington Chorus, University of Michigan Chamber Choir, Ars Nova Singers, The Argus String Quartet, Electric Earth, and Ciompi Quartet.
A short film of the title poem from Studdard’s I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast (by Dan Sickles of Moxie Pictures for Motionpoems) was an official selection for the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, as well as winner of the REEL Poetry Festival Audience Choice Award. Other poems of Studdard’s have been made into car magnets, telepoem booth recordings, origami bouquets, and Houston City Banners and have won or placed in prizes such as The Lucille Medwick Memorial Award for a poem on a humanitarian theme from The Poetry Society of America, The Penn Review Poetry Prize, Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize from The Missouri Review, the Tom Howard Prize from Winning Writers, The Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize from Munster Literature Centre, and Aesthetica magazine Creative Writing Award.
Her book awards include the Forward National Literature Award, the International Book Award, the Kathak Literary Award, the Poiesis Award of Honor International, the Readers’ Favorite Award, and two Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards. As well, her works have been listed in Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts’ Best Books of the Year, January Magazine’s Best Children’s Books of the Year, Bustle’s “8 Feminist Poems To Inspire You When The World Is Just Too Much,” and Amazon’s Most Gifted Books.
In addition to writing, Studdard is a past president of the Associated Writing Program’s Women’s Caucus and is former executive producer and host of VIDA Voices & Views for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. With Kelli Russell Agodon, she hosts the youtube podcast Poems You Need.