Maile Meloy

Maile Meloy (born February 15, 1972) is an internationally acclaimed American novelist, short-story writer, and children's author whose lean, elegant prose and sharp psychological insight have established her as a master of contemporary social landscapes. Born and raised in Helena, Montana, she earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, before launching her literary career. Meloy vaulted into critical prominence with her 2003 debut short-story collection, Half in Love, which won the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, followed by her Orange Prize-shortlisted debut novel, Liars and Saints. Renowned for her ability to build intense, quiet narrative tension out of the domestic complexities of love, class, and family, she solidified her status as a major literary voice with her second story collection, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, which The New York Times Book Review named one of the Ten Best Books of 2009. Her diverse bibliography also includes the critically adored domestic drama A Family Daughter, her bestselling middle-grade fantasy adventure series The Apothecary trilogy (comprising The Apothecary, The Apprentices, and The After-Room), and her high-stakes, pulse-pounding adult thriller, Do Not Become Alarmed, which tracks a family vacation gone terrifyingly wrong. A regular contributor to elite literary magazines, her shorter fiction has appeared frequently in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Granta, earning her the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, a PEN/Malamud Award, and a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.