Melinda Burns

Melinda Burns is a status member of the Lower Mohawk First Nation. She is the daughter of a Mohawk mother and an English father. She grew up in Toronto, visiting her mother’s Six Nations reserve and her aunties, uncles, and cousins there. She received a Master’s degree in Applied Psychology from the University of Toronto and was also trained as a creative arts therapist specializing in writing. Soon after her daughter was born, she and her family moved to Guelph, Ontario. Her short stories have placed first in the 2001 Toronto Star Short Story contest and in the 2006 Elora Writers’ Festival contest. Her essay “Legacy” was a finalist in the 2023 Prism International Creative Non-Fiction contest. Her stories, essays, and poems have appeared in the The New Quarterly, Grain, The Fiddlehead, Canadian Notes and Queries, Native Skin, and One Art, and on CBC radio. She is a psychotherapist and a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada. Melinda writes trying to understand this life without destroying the mystery: to excavate, untangle, and set free.

Bio provided by BookLand Press.