Melanie Rae Thon

Melanie Rae Thon (born 1957) is an American writer. She is a recipient of a Fellowship in Creative Arts from The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a Whiting Writer's Award from the Whiting Foundation, the Hopwood Award, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Book Award, the Gina Berriault Award, and a Writer's Residency from the Lannan Foundation. In 2009, she was Virgil C. Aldrich Fellow at the Tanner Humanities Center. She has taught at Emerson College, Syracuse University, University of Massachusetts Boston, Ohio State University, and the University of Utah. Born in Montana, Thon currently resides in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Thon's most recent books are Silence & Song (2015), The 7th Man (2015), and The Good Samaritan Speaks (2015). She is also the author of the novels The Voice of the River (2011), Sweet Hearts (2001), Meteors in August (1990), and Iona Moon (1993), and the story collections In This Light (2011), Girls in the Grass (1991), and First, Body (1997).

Thon's short story "Letters in the Snow," is included in the The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006. The story was first published in the June 20, 2004 issue of One Story, a literary journal. "Letters in the Snow" is subtitled "for kind strangers and unborn children -- for the ones lost and most beloved." Her fiction has also been included in the anthology series Best American Short Stories (1995, 1996) and three Pushcart Prize Anthologies (2003, 2006, 2008).

In 1996, Granta magazine included Thon on its list of the twenty Best Young American Novelists.

Works

Books

• Meteors in August. Random House. 1990. ISBN 978-0-394-57664-0.
• Girls in the Grass. Random House. 1991. ISBN 978-0-394-57663-3.
• Iona Moon. Simon & Schuster. 1993. ISBN 978-0-671-79687-7.
• First, Body. Houghton Mifflin. 1997. ISBN 978-0-395-78588-1.
  • "Little White Sister," Originally Published in Ploughshares, Winter 1993-1994^[1]
  • "Xmas, Jamaica Plain," Originally Published in Granta 54: Best of Young American Novelists, Summer 1996^[2]
• Sweet Hearts. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2001. ISBN 978-0-395-78589-8.
• In This Light: New and Selected Stories. Graywolf Press. 2011. ISBN 978-1-555-97585-2.
• The Voice of the River. Fiction Collective 2. 2011. ISBN 978-1-573-66162-1.
• Silence & Song. Fiction Collective 2. 2015. ISBN 978-1-573-66053-2.
• The 7th Man. DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press. 2015. ISBN 978-1-934832-52-3.
• The Good Samaritan Speaks. Prompt Press. 2015. Online and print. http://promptpress.org

Stories

• "Catch You Later," Ploughshares, Fall 1987^[3]
• "The River Woman's Son," Ploughshares, Spring 1997^[4]
• "Letters in the Snow," One Story, Issue 40, June 2004^[5]

References

1. https://www.pshares.org/issues/winter-1993-94
2. https://granta.com/xmas-jamaica-plain/
3. https://www.pshares.org/issues/fall-1987
4. https://www.pshares.org/issues/spring-1997
5. http://www.one-story.com/index.php?page=stories&story_id=40

External links

• University of Utah Faculty Profile of Melanie Rae Thon
• "Translation", SmokeLong Quarterly, September 15, 2006
• "The Light of Stars, Yes" by Melanie Rae Thon in "Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts" (26.1)
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• FC2
• DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press
• Open Road Media
• Prompt Press
• Saltfront
• Graywolf Press
• Artist Profile
• (Silence & Song)
• Fiction
• Interview