Melinda Metz
Melinda Metz grew up in San Jose, California. People sometimes ask if she knows the way there. She kinda does, but she has an off-kilter sense of direction, so to be confident of arriving, it's better to consult some kind of navigational device.
Her mother tried to teach her to read in kindergarten, but Melinda had no interest. She also had no interest in learning to write her name. (FYI, when Melinda was in kindergarten it was all about finger-painting, play time, and naps.) Eventually, she mastered both and even majored in English at San Jose State University.
After college, Melinda moved to Manhattan to seek her fortune, which involved learning to identify fruits and vegetables while working at a grocery store,
making $2.73 working backstage for an off-off Broadway play (her part of the box-office profits), and editing books.
Melinda and the lovely and talented Laura J. Burns pretty much became unofficial writing partners when they were editors at the same company. They teamed up to brainstorm story ideas, and at some point their brains fused in some key places. Later they worked on the Roswell High book series, Laura developing and editing the series, Melinda writing.
That series led to Melinda and Laura, now an official writing team, writing two TV pilots, moving to L.A. to work on the Roswell TV show, and briefly living in Toronto while on the writing staff of 1-800-Missing. They both continue to write books, together and separately.
Laura and Melinda's new book, Sanctuary Bay, a YA thriller, is coming out in January 2016. It's set at an ultra-exclusive private school on an island. Once a student is accepted to the school, they must stay until graduation. No visits home, no contact with the outside world at all. Find out why in January!
The first four books in Melinda's new middle-grade mystery series,S.M.A.R.T.S., are out now. The books involve a group of kids in a makerspace club and they all have lots of science info. For all the cool geeks out there!
Melinda lives in Concord, NC with her dog, Scully (yes, she loves the woo-woo so much she named her dog after a kickass X-Files character). She has never regretted learning to read and write her name.
“I'm thinking we need a plan...I'm thinking it should involve running.”
“Lavender used to be my favorite color in the box of sixty-four crayons - you know, the one with the sharpener built into the side...It seemed like it could draw anything. It was the right color for everything. I drew lavender flowers and my father's lavender eyes, my mother's lavender smile. They were the same to me, mother, father, flowers. All good. All lavender. And I was lavender, too.”
“Maria loved the way she and Liz could just sit in the same room together, each doing their own thing, sometimes talking, sometimes not. You had to be really good friends with someone before it felt this comfortable to basically ignore them for long stretches of time.”
“Okay, he hadn't exactly been happy. But welcome to the club, right? He had eyes. He could see auras, those swirls of color that surrounded all living things, as unique as fingerprints. And those auras told him there were a lot of people out there who weren't quite happy or exactly miserable. And they were all getting along okay.”
“Somehow she could always think better when all her hair was out of her face. Stupid, but true.”
“Isabel wondered if there would ever be a time when she could stop being careful. If there would ever be a time when she could use other kinds of power. She missed it. It felt like part of her had been injected with novocaine and was totally numb. Almost dead" (p.35).”