Teenagers Image by Lockers in School

Meet the Author

In the last three years, did you have times when you felt broken? Author Melody Dean Dimick sure did. Her feelings that she and our world were damaged led her to change the title of her newest novel from What Lies Beneath to Broken.

Has COVID left you trying to cope with fear, sadness, loneliness, parent and relationship issues, or, worse yet, the lack of a relationship? Has bullying online or at school resulted in your hiding a negative body image? Melody once walked on her “spaghetti legs” in her uncool sneakers, so she understands the feelings of being different from classmates. As a teen, she read to get away from work on her family’s poultry farm and to escape the insecurities of feeling not smart, pretty, or coordinated enough to measure up to others’ expectations.

Melody writes books with characters she hopes you’ll find believable, relatable, and a bit quirky. Her characters in the Silent series hide in the lives and adventures of manga superheroes that populate the books the friends read, while they experience the real pain of high school juniors and seniors.

Unlike many contemporary writers, Melody writes about students living in rural America, mainly the Adirondack area of New York and in Central Florida. Melody’s No Parents Allowed—set almost exclusively in a virtual reality chat room—won Gold / First Place in the 2020 Florida Writers Association Royal Palm Literary Awards in the Young Adult genre. She thinks the feelings of isolation created by the quarantine helped readers realize we aren’t alone with our problems.

If you feel clumsy or geeky, you are not the only one. Since she has never been able to live down her reputation as the girl who hit the driver’s education teacher’s car with the driver’s education car while learning how to parallel park, Melody considers herself an authority on klutzy. Riley, the main character in her latest novel in verse, Broken—set in Central Florida, away from the hustle and bustle of Disney and major cities—is somewhat autobiographical.

Have you ever escaped boredom or pain by lying on your back trying to identify shapes in passing clouds? Riley also enjoys evading her problems by watching drifting clouds and finds passing her road test a challenge. You, too, may see a little of yourself in the story.

“No one ever really escapes high school” is Melody’s mantra. During her years of teaching, she witnessed the alienation and vulnerability of one-sided loves, the dreams crushed, the injustices, and the tragedies her students faced. She gets young adults.

Read Backpack Blues: Ignite the Fire Within to discover how she gives voice to high school students, allowing them to spill their truths onto the pages. Better yet, ask your local theater to produce her play, Ain’t It a Shame. Do you find yourself, or a younger version of yourself, in one of the play’s characters?

Award-winning author Melody Dean Dimick creates vivid wordscapes of the Adirondacks, Vermont, and Florida in her books. Dimick, the winner of three Royal Palm Literary Awards from the Florida Writers Association.