Workshops in 2024
Generative writing (Winter): Join me at the Wellington Writers Studio, 145 Cuba Street, Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington for a weekly lunchtime writing session with short readings and prompts. Generative workshops are designed to get us writing together, in community, fostering the connection and creativity that sparks from exchange. This workshop is for all genres. August 21st - September 25th 2024. Further information is here.
Nonfiction Experiments (Spring): Join me online and in person at on The Terrace in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington for a weekly seminar on nonfiction experiments--the fun, diverse forms and containers for nonfiction that move beyond the essay, article, or long-form narration and allow for hybridity, non-linearity, and play. Weekly readings and writing exercises challenge you to open to new possibilities. Start date in October 2024. Please email for further info: melodynixon@gmail.com
Planned workshops in 2025
Nonfiction: Memoir, Life Writing, Autofiction and Autotheory (Late summer). This 10 week in-person course in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington is a part generative writing workshop and part study of "auto" forms. Begins in February and runs until April, tentative dates: 04/02/25 - 08/04/25. Held at the Wellington Writers Studio, 145 Cuba Street. Early-bird discount for registration by January 15th. Register your interest by contacting Melody at melodynixon@gmail.com, or using the form below.
Writing the Spirit (Autumn). This 10 week hybrid course, both online and in-person in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, investigates the connection between the creative and spiritual realms through creative writing exercises, readings, meditation and energy work (light healing). Tuesday and Thursday 12pm-1pm. Runs from May through June. Online on Zoom, and in-person on The Terrace in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington. Register your interest by contacting Melody at melodynixon@gmail.com or using the form below.
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"I have been meaning to write to you to tell you how much I enjoyed your workshop. I can't tell you how much it helped me. Although I have had several novels published, the last while has been really tough... Being in this limbo really has eroded my confidence, and has effected my ability to work on my current book. I was beginning to worry about what I should be writing that will provide me a living, rather than the book I want to write. Your workshop brought me back to the place I need to be as a writer. It was so absolutely fundamental to clearing the block I was experiencing, to connect with others and acknowledge that all these fears are part of being a writer, or an artist, or a musician. I have been working on a new novel the past few months, and the work we did on 27th June helped me take it to a new level and connect with my unconscious. So thank you so very very much. You are an absolutely fabulous facilitator."
—Noelle Harrison, author of numerous novels including The Witches of Vardø, Last Summer in Ireland, The Boatman's Wife, A Small Part of Me, I Remember, and The Adulteress.
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Writing Workshops
I have taught internationally in university, community, and private settings. My courses have included writing workshops and seminars on specific creative writing topics (memoir, cultural criticism, lyric essay, short prose forms, auto-theory, American prose, postcolonial writing, autobiographical writing), creativity unblocking, and writing and social justice. I am based in Aotearoa New Zealand and will next be in the Bay Area, California, Fall 2024. Please see below for participant testimony.
Previous workshop venues include: Wellington Writers Studio (Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa New Zealand); Massey University (Aotearoa New Zealand); Columbia University (New York, NY); New York Writers' Coalition (New York, NY); Apogee Journal/Brooklyn Arts Council (Brooklyn, NY); Hudson Valley Writers' Center (Westchester, NY); Literature House (Bergen, Norway); Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, Germany); and University of Stuttgart (Germany).
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"Thank you for the outstanding workshop. Your professionalism, dedication, knowledge, and teaching skills gave our group a fantastically productive and inspiring day... You handled the various talents and passions of the group just right. I was, and remain, knocked out by your multiplicity of talents and knowing."
—Jadi Campbell, President, Writers in Stuttgart
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Manuscript Critique
I specialize in editing memoirs and nonfiction manuscripts, and have assisted my clients towards publication, agent representation, and award successes. I also greatly enjoy editing and providing feedback on lyric essays, prose poetry, autotheory, cross-genre works, and creative-critical hybrids. I have worked with all of these forms as an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and MFA thesis reader for Columbia University.
2024 update: I am available to critique and edit all fiction and nonfiction manuscripts, from short works (1200 words min.) to full-length book drafts. I love to see my clients go on to publication, awards, entrance to prestigious MFA programs, agent representation, and other successes; or to simply feel they have reached completion and achieved their goals, be those personal, family-related, aesthetic, rhetorical, or political. I am also available to consult on academic essays, particularly interdisciplinary works, and those engaging the fields of Literature, Critical Race and Ethnicity Studies, and Decolonization.
I am open and transparent with my rates. I charge $75USD/hr for short works 1200 words and above. Large works (full-length manuscripts) typically charge at $2000 USD with response letter, manuscript line edits, and Zoom consult.
Contact me: mjn2131 |@| columbia.edu, or use the form below, to start a conversation.
"Melody's feedback was useful, thoughtful, and engaging. She delves deeply into the motivations and actions of both the characters and the writer. Her comprehensive review gave me a new lens with which to re-enter the editing process."
—Alejandro Varela, Writer, NYFA Fellow, 2022 National Book Awards Finalist, Brooklyn, NY
