About

Melissent Zumwalt is an emerging writer who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays have appeared in Arkana, Harpur Palate, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Hippocampus, JMWW, Mud Season Review, Oregon Humanities’ Beyond the Margins, Pithead Chapel, Variant Literature, Whale Road Review and elsewhere. A Best of the Net finalist and Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been supported by the Fishtrap Writers Conference. Her creative nonfiction focuses on themes of family, place and class.

Melissent is a first-generation college graduate who holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Portland State University and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Oregon. She is an administrator by day and in a previous lifetime she pursued a career as a professional dancer.