This week, Thom Francis welcomes Melissa Anderson to the outdoor stage at Mojo’s Cafe for a special reading celebrating poets and writers from the Hudson Valley Writers Guild and two online journals on October 5, 2024.

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Between publishing her poetry, performing her work on stage, and running Slam Euphoria, Melissa Anderson is a force in the local poetry community. On a beautiful fall afternoon in 2024, Melissa was joined by poets and writers from the HVWG, Hobo Camp Review, and Trailer Park Quarterly at Mojo’s Cafe in downtown Troy. 

Melissa is a writer, artist, and craftsman. Now a furniture maker by trade, she has worked variously in theater, the fine arts, and leather production, all of which influence her poetry. Like the constellations, she sees poems as navigational, both records of the past and maps forward to the future. Her poetry explores the beauty in the banal and how the things we make help define who we are and the places we call home. Her first collection of poems, Dogstar Poems, was published by Main Street Rag in November 2024.

Renowned poet Jared Singer said of Dogstar Poems, “Melissa Anderson’s first book of poetry is an elegy for all she has lost and a treasure map to what she hopes to find. Using clever metaphor and a love for the small moments she invites her reader with her and shares all she has found. She reminds us that simple doesn’t mean easy and even winter, even death is finite.”