Melanie Wells
 Daddy-O displays an early sartorial flair  Dot and Ron with my brother, Mike, aka "the football." Look how young they are. What were they thinking?  Mike and me in front of the Christmas tree. We were 2 and 3 here. He was my hero. That was before he started beating me up, of course.  My mom was deadly with the scissors. This is first grade. Mrs. Smith's class.  I prayed to Jesus for these gogo boots. It worked, obvoiusly.  Dot and me on my first plane ride. My mom wore hot pants back then. I thought she should be Miss America.  My friend Ricky Bryant took this photo. It was the end of a 12 hour day but Ricky got me to smile anyway. This was taken at my office -- great windows! |
The makings of a writer...Apocalyptic catastrophe always helps. Especially if you have someone who'll buddy-breathe you through it. Or go over the cliff with you.  At my favorite burger place in Amarillo - this was during the Thelma and Louise Poverty Tour of the American West, Summer 2000 Writers are made, not born. There's a formula. You have to start with a certain amount of family dysfunction. It doesn't have to be quite of the Sylvia Plath variety, but if you have an alcoholic or two in the group, or possibly a catastrophic loss of some kind, or at least a chronic inability to function in the face of conflict, you're off to a good start. You also need a wild imagination. Early manifestations of this might include imaginary childhood friends, creating strange play-dough sculptures and storing them in the freezer, making up odd stories about your relatives and telling them on the playground - things like that. It also helps to grow up in an atmosphere that fosters creativity. This might be a stultifying conservative tight-lipped family (creativity as a necessary survival tool), or perhaps a family that's so creative themselves they have great art in the house but forget to mow the front yard. Either way, the crucial thing is that creativity must be cultivated. Fail to water it and it will shrivel and die. My story involves parents too young to know what they were doing when they married - both musicians and both from Amarillo, TX, a community that values the arts. They worked hard and played hard and they raised my brother and me to think outside the lines, to fend for ourselves in the world, and to take art seriously. We took work seriously in my family too. And politics. My parents come close to divorce every four years. I grew up listening to Mahler, Barber, Shostakovich, and Brubeck, Getz, and Blood, Sweat & Tears. They were equal opportunity listeners, Dot and Ron. We had great food and great company and I learned that the experience is the thing. Music evaporates as soon as your bow leaves the string. If you haven't listened, you've missed it. And if you don't learn to do it right, no one will listen in the first place. I became a writer because I'm a musician and a reader and because I need to make something of my observations. I knit them into a story that's nothing more than my point of view. But that's all creativity is. It's all you have to offer up - the view from your side of the kitchen table.  Can you find the writer in this picture? Mrs. Jones' homeroom (I was afraid of her) A native of the Texas panhandle and the child of musicians, Melanie Wells attended Southern Methodist University on a music scholarship (she's a fiddle player), and later completed graduate degrees in counseling psychology and Biblical studies at Our Lady of the Lake University and Dallas Theological Seminary. She has taught at the graduate level at both OLLU and DTS, and has been in private practice as a counselor since 1992. She is the founder and director of LifeWorks counseling associates in Dallas, Texas, a collaborative community of creative therapists. When the Day of Evil Comes is her first published work of fiction, and the first of a three-book series. The second work, The Soul Hunter was released in May, 2006. She lives and writes in Dallas. Favorite movie: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee Runner-up: The Hunt for Red October (Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin and a terrific screenplay) Favorite book: To Kill a Mockingbird (obviously) Runner-up: In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote Poet: John Donne (look it up) Songwriter: Trish Murphy Composer: Mahler Dessert: my chocolate chip cookies Hometown: Amarillo, TX High School mascot: The Golden Sandies Fun fact: I recently stalked Lyle Lovett and got him to autograph my fiddle case  Hint |
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