Melissa Diem

Melissa Diem was born in New York and has lived in Ireland since she was twelve. She has a degree in psychology and an MPhil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin and was awarded a Bank of Ireland Millennium Scholarship. She has published the novel, Changeling [Pan (UK) and Gill & Macmillan (Ireland)] and poetry in several journals including Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, The Shop, The Sunday Tribune, Rival and Lighthouse 4th. She was the Featured Poet in The Stinging Fly Spring issue 2010. She was shortlisted for both the Hennessy Literary Awards and the Bradshaw Cork Literary Review Poetry Manuscript Competition and joint runner up for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. Melissa has exhibited visual media throughout Ireland including at the RHA, Iontas, Guinness Hopstore and The Ark. Recently Melissa began making poetry films based on her poems which have been screened at the Belfast Film Festival 2013, Filmpoem Festival 2013 in Scotland, Timeline Festival 2013 in Manchester, Honourably Mentioned at The Body Electric Poetry Film Festival 2013 in Colorado, selected for the Cologne OFF 2013 in Germany and a finalist at the La Parola Immaginata- Trevigliopoesia 2013, Italy and recently commissioned by Filmpoem and Felix Poetry Festival in association with The Poetry Society UK to make a poetry film 2014. She is also developing visual artwork for a forthcoming book of her poetry published by The Poetry Bus Press in 2020. https://www.instagram.com/melissajdiem/