Lynn Melnick

Lynn Melnick is the author of four poetry collections: I Deserve This, Thank You (Copper Canyon Press, 2027); Refusenik (YesYes Books, 2022), winner of the Julie Suk Award and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award; Landscape with Sex and Violence (YesYes Books, 2017); and If I Should Say I Have Hope (YesYes Books, 2012). 

Melnick is also the author of the memoir I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (University of Texas Press, 2022). 

Melnick’s other awards include the 2026 Stern Prize from American Poetry Review. A former fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, she has taught at the 92nd Street Y and served on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. Melnick teaches at Columbia University and Princeton University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.