Melissa Shepherd holds a BA in English literature and poetry from Binghamton University, where she was the recipient of the Andrew Bergman Award for Creative Writing and an MFA in poetry from the Naslund-Mann School of Writing at Spalding University. She recently completed her first collection of poems, Keys to the Emptying House. Her works appear or are forthcoming in BRAWL Lit, Good River Review, Jarnal, Twin Bird Review, The Dread Literary Review, and Thimble Literary Magazine. She was longlisted for the 2026 Ploughshares Emerging Writers’ Contest and a finalist for the 2026 Calyx Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize.

When she’s not writing, Melissa paints. Large-scale abstract acrylics are her specialty. She also advocates for the arts as a member of the board of trustees of Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, NJ, where she lives with her husband and two teenagers.