Mel Hilario

Melanie “Mel” Hilario is a writer who empowers readers by helping them understand the world around them, blending genres and transforming traditional character archetypes into fully realized people, with their own quirks, language, and interior lives. Mel received her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College, has been a recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation grant and residencies at VONA (Voices of our Nations Arts), Las Dos Brujas Writers Workshop, Writing by Writers, and Hedgebrook. She has developed characters for toy lines, masterminded educational workbooks, and written wrenching essays, most recently for the Kindred Souls anthology, Angry Women.

Along with Lauren Davis and Katie Longua, Mel is part of the Eisner-nominated team, Triple Dream Comics. Together, they created the middle grade graphic novels, "Debian Perl, Digital Detective" and "Agent Cupcake." Their short story, "Traitor, Trickster, Dummy, Doll" appeared in The Nib and was nominated for the 2022 Eisner Award for Best Short Story.

When she isn’t writing fiction, nonfiction, and comic books, Mel is in martial arts or ballet class, teaching Pilates, or attempting to stay off social media and failing miserably. She lives in Oakland with two of the largest cats her friends have ever seen.