MELISSA ELEFTHERION
Melissa Eleftherion (she/they) is a writer, a librarian, and a visual artist. Born & raised in Brooklyn, they are the author of four poetry collections: field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), gutter rainbows (Querencia Press, 2024), Suture (Cooper Dillon, 2026) & Malocchia (White Stag, 2026) as well as twelve chapbooks including abject sutures (above/ground press, 2024). Her work has been widely published & recently appeared/is forthcoming in Sixth Finch, Verse Daily, DIAGRAM, & South Dakota Review. Melissa served as Poet Laureate for the City of Ukiah (2021-2024), and now lives in Northern California where she manages the Ukiah Branch Library and curates the LOBA Reading Series.
MALOCCHIA
Malocchia is a collection of narrative & erasure poems that wander the haunted terrain of bloodlines, memory, & becoming. Taking its name from the feminized form of the Italian malocchio, or "evil eye", this book invokes a matriarchal inheritance through which the speaker seeks to discern their own reflection, blessing & curse entwined. This book is an excavation to uncover the relics of ancestry, confront the unseen forces that bind generations together, & explore a self that can endure beyond them. Through erasure, invocation, & revelation, Malocchia is an unflinching meditation on what we carry, what we choose to leave behind, & the possibility of forging a future beyond the weight of lineage.