During 18 years as an expatriate, Melanie Drane lived in Bonn, Vienna, London, and Tokyo. In 2006, she became the first non-British poet to receive the UK National Poetry Competition Prize. Melanie was the recipient of a 2007-08 Literary Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council. From 2002-2004, she was writer-in-residence at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Her poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Iowa Review, The North American Review, Indiana Review, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, Comstock Review, Poetry Review (UK), and Witness (which awarded her the 2002 Witness Emerging Poets Prize).

Her writing life has also included working as speechwriter for a former Berlin mayor near the end of the Cold War; editor at a Tokyo think-tank; and newspaper wine columnist. Melanie currently leads writing workshops and creative retreats at Basho's Cabin in Durham, North Carolina.

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