Melissa Tuckey is a poet, writer, and editor with a background in environmental and social justice activism. She has worked as a professional writer and community organizer in the military toxics movement. Tuckey is co-founder with Sarah Browning, Reggie Cabio, and Jaime Jarvis, of Split This Rock, a national literary organization dedicated to poetry of provocation and witness. Her poetry is fed and inspired by these experiences.
Tuckey is author of two collections of poetry. Tenuous Chapel was selected by Charles Simic for the ABZ Press First Book Award (2013). Rope as Witness, a chapbook was published by Pudding House Press (2007). Her honors include a winter fellowship at Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and artist awards from Ohio Arts Council and DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, as well as a residency at Blue Mountain Center. She’s currently at work as editor of Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, forthcoming with University of Georgia Press. She’s taught writing and literature at multiple universities. This fall, she’ll be teaching at Mansfield University.