Melissa Ivanco-Murray

Alas, we used to practice in Bob's Basement Confession time: I haven’t guitared in forever. Ever since I started working on The Night Chemist (working title), I have had a hard time motivating myself to focus on my music. At first, it was because I just I was so excited about my new project; the novelty kept me hooked. Then, I started to stagnate. I found myself playing the same songs over and over, mindlessly, rather than trying to actually improve or learn/write anything n

Alright, time to put out another call for beta readers! I’m going to be pretty selective with who gets to give feedback on this one, 1) because it’s a short story, 2) I plan on using this as a freebie story for people who sign up for my mailing list, and 3) I want to prioritize those beta readers who actually read fast and give good feedback. So yeah  Initial round of revisions and tweaks and edits for “Poisoned Plums” is complete, so it’s time to get a set of eyes on it—or

Link to full dissertation, Amazons, Shieldmaidens, and Daring Polianitsy : Slavic Warrior Women in Medieval Literature and Folklore : https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/r207tq787 Time for Slavic Warrior women, part 4! Today we’ll be tackling an introduction to the Amazons and Scythians of Ancient Greek Literature, and then I’ll be going into some of the case studies I actually used for the extraordinary women whose narratives formed the backbone of my dissertat

I do a lot of things when I’m not writing, and not just guitaring. I’m an all-around creative person. I am constantly in a state of creation. Sometimes I sew clothes or costumes or crafts, sometimes I make jewelry, sometimes I make seasonal wreaths because I’m never happy with what’s hanging on my front door...but a lot of times, I draw. I used to paint, but that got messy. Then I went crazy with my Copic markers, but I had a kid and those are way too much temptation for him,

Beth Cato, A Feast For Starving Stone . How epic of a title is that?? First, the blurb, courtesy Goodreads: Two countries at war. A delicious taste of magic. And a fierce princess comes of age in a rousing adventure by the author of A Thousand Recipes for Revenge. Princess Solenn’s marriage into royalty should have unified the continental neighbors of Verdania and Solenn’s homeland of Braiz against a common enemy. the country of Albion. Thanks to Albion’s cunning sabotage,

Time for this month’s reading roundup! This was a finishing-up-series kind of month. But I’m doing this whole thing where I try to read newer books, rather than just binging The Sevenwaters Trilogy or The Dragonriders of Pern for the dozenth time. I’m a nostalgia reader by default (but then, I’m also still listening to the same bands I loved in high school). I made it through six books in March (although technically I started reading Heir to the Shadows at the end of Febr

Link to full dissertation, Amazons, Shieldmaidens, and Daring Polianitsy : Slavic Warrior Women in Medieval Literature and Folklore : https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/r207tq787 Time for Slavic Warrior women, part 3! Today we’ll be talking about the Spirit of the Warrior, and what happens when women get involved. For funzies, I’ve included an old picture of me in uniform, for I remain a grumpy veteran. This post will probably piss off everyone, on either side

Alrighty, so I’m done with my first draft of the short story, “Poisoned Plums,” that I’ve been working on the past few weeks. Well, maybe a month. I forget when exactly I got the idea and began brainstorming how best to turn that idea into a story. How long I've been working on it isn’t important lol. What is important is, now that the first draft is done, I can take a short break to work on something else before diving back in for the initial round of revisions and rewrites

I've got news! Sort of. It's small news. I have been bouncing the idea around for a while now of creating a brand new mailing list from scratch, since I never really figured out how to get the first one going with any consistency. They have a ton of new tools nowadays for organizing and scheduling email newsletters, so I'm going to try this again! I've got a lot of topics and exclusive goodies and such that I plan on covering in these emails, but I promise I won't spam your i

Link to full dissertation, Amazons, Shieldmaidens, and Daring Polianitsy : Slavic Warrior Women in Medieval Literature and Folklore : https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/r207tq787 It's time for part 2 of my Slavic Warrior Women series! This time, we'll be delving a little deeper into the concept of genre, which is integral to understanding how history becomes literature. Put on your academic hats, and let's dive into how historical Scythians became fictional Amazo

Now that March is almost half gone, I suppose I should actually explain why I’ve been more active on social media than usual: I am participating in a social media/writing challenge with one of the writer groups I’m in. With querying being as slow and frustrating of a process as it is, it can be difficult to maintain momentum and motivation while playing the waiting game. It’s hard not to resent the “gatekeeping,” even though I know it’s not the agents’ fault that they can acc

I haven’t posted much about my own writing in a while, so I figured we’re due an update on that front. Last month I started working on a short story that takes place about six months prior to the beginning of The Night Chemist (working title). In broad strokes, the short story involves Aylin Aga (26) investigating whether she is the intended target of a potential poisoning, which took down one of her professors, all while studying for her chemistry licensing exam. Thus, we g

Amazons, Shieldmaidens, and Daring Polianitsy : Slavic Warrior Women in Medieval Literature and Folklore Last May, I graduated with my PhD from the University of Virginia in Slavic Languages & Literatures. Over the course of my research (almost seven years from my first day of grad school through defending my dissertation), many many MANY folks told me my topic sounded fascinating. Obviously, I’m biased, but I agree. Since I get so many questions and requests to read it, ge

I posted about this on Instagram a while back as my stock of Slavic Tarot decks was dwindling and then, alas, exhausted, but I figured I should probably talk a bit more about its creation process and why I ultimately discontinued printing it here, for those who are curious or have been pressing me to make another printing. I’ll begin with why I stopped, which I guess is beginning with the ending: printing costs have skyrocketed. They are absolutely bonkers high right now.

As promised, I’m back with a more thorough review of my favorite February read: Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun . Going to try to do this without giving away too many spoilers, but we’ll see how well I succeed. I’ll start with just a copy/paste of the book blurb from Goodreads, because I don’t feel like inventing my own blurb when a) writing blurbs is HARD, yo and b) the blurb already exists. Work smarter, not harder. In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yel

In my efforts to post more consistently this year, I’ve decided to do a reading roundup at the end of each month to rate the books I’ve read that month and share a few notes about each, and then I’ll do a longer book review of my favorite read. My reading habits are all over the place and I am a chronic re-reader of my old favorites, so fair warning: not all the books I’m going to post in these roundups will be new releases (or even from the past decade). I’m drawn to older w

My band released two songs this past year (first was actually in 2025, but it was less than a year ago, so I stand by my statement), and I never got around to making any kind of big announcement over here about it, considering I never made any real announcements about anything over here. But hey, better late than never, right? So I thought I’d include links to where you can listen to both our tracks and where you can read the lyrics! So enjoy these nifty embedded players I

If you haven’t noticed from the website background, I’m a musician. Specifically, I’m a guitarist and a vocalist. Music is a huge part of my life and always has been. I’ve played the guitar since I was ten, and I’ve been singing since I first learned to speak. One of my earliest memories is of playing in the kiddie pool in my backyard, circa age three or four, making up a song about trees. All that to say, I like music. A lot. I’m not one of those writers (or readers) who l

Alright. So. I know it’s been a hot minute since I’ve written on here—like, a scorching hot minute—and there are a multitude of reasons for that. Chiefly among them, I’ve been exceedingly busy. Turns out, raising a toddler is a full-time gig in and of itself...and on top of that, I’ve been protesting, writing, guitaring, making art, and in general being a societal nuisance to the best of my ability because these are some dark times, and we need some good trouble. At the end o

So this morning, while scrolling through Google to ensure no one was trying to steal my artwork (I possess the legal, physical copyright...