Melissa Scholes Young is the author of the award-winning novels Flood and The Hive. She received the Shelf Unbound Best Book Award in 2021 and the Next Generation Indie Book Award in 2023. She’s published two chapbooks, Scrap Metal Baby and Guinea Pig. She serves as Editor of Grace in Darkness, Furious Gravity, Grace in Love, and Grit & Gravity, anthologies by D.C. women writers. Her essays have appeared in the Atlantic, Ms., Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Brevity, Literary Hub, Joyland, Gargoyle, and Believer Magazine. Her poetry chapbook, Another Word for Longing: Saudade (FLP, fall 2026), won 1st Honorable Mention in the New Women’s Voices series. She’s received fellowships & grants from the Maryland Arts Council, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Carmargo Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Quarry Farm at Center for Mark Twain Studies, and Virginia Center for Creative Arts.  A first generation college student from Hannibal, Missouri, she is Professor in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the University of Kentucky and owns Bond House Books in Lexington.