Melanie Rodriguez holds a BA in creative writing from Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont. She says she's been compelled to write stories dictated by the voices she's heard inside her head since she was a child, citing the story line of her debut book Child of Blackwen: An Artemis Ravenwing Novel as one of the main reasons she majored in creative writing. It's an epic work of high fantasy narrating the coming-of-age story of a young half-vampire, half-human creature known as a dhampir. A former New Yorker, Rodriguez is an avid reader and sports fan who now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her overly excitable shepsky (a shepherd-husky mix), Shadow.