Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Pleckham.
Hi Melissa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up near Los Angeles, and I’ve always been fascinated by the sprawling, glorious, beautiful chaos of this city. I’ve spent my entire adult life here focusing on my many creative passions, including writing, acting/filmmaking, and music.
As a writer, my passion is my fiction and poetry, but I’ve done everything from ghostwriting professional articles for attorneys to creating marketing copy to blogging about beauty products and local Halloween events. My work has been published in a number of print and online journals and anthologies, and my screenplays have been selected in many local genre film festivals.
My husband, Ken Ramos, is a director and film editor, and we frequently collaborate on screenplays and film projects, including the short “Group,” about a support group for survivors of bachelorette parties, which I co-wrote and starred in. In 2021, I co-starred in and partially co-wrote the pilot episode of “In the Land of Fruits and Nuts,” a comedy web series about a newly single lesbian dating in Los Angeles, with star and showrunner Krista Prokopchuk.
Additionally, my husband and I create music together under the name Black Lullabies. Our song “Black Lullabies” was featured on the soundtrack for American Horror Story: Coven and we recorded our song “Crown Shyness” and its accompanying music video entirely at home in the early days of the pandemic in 2020.
Currently, I’m at work on my first novel, which is set largely in LA and the Valley.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Certainly not, but as any LA hiker will tell you: What’s the fun of a smooth, paved road?! The adventure is in the unpaved trail, or — even scarier! — the unmarked path.
First of all, I would say that you should be prepared for a lot of rejection. Whatever you’re expecting in terms of volume, it’s going to be way more than that, especially when it comes to writing. But I think the biggest struggle is sustaining faith in yourself for the amount of time it takes to actually complete a creative project. A story or a song can be conceived and finished in a few hours, but a novel? An album? A film? Those things take time, and some days I have to remind myself that my story is worth telling, even if it feels like no one is listening. Everyone has a story worth telling. Everyone should contribute to the culture. The act of creation is beautiful and worthy, and profound, and divine.
What I’ve learned is this: It doesn’t matter what happens to it once it’s out in the world, whether it finds an audience or hits or doesn’t. That’s not up to me. What’s up to me is to bring it into the world. So believe in your worth, even if it feels like no one else does, and bring it into the world, even if you think no one wants it. I promise you, it’s important.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I pretend that I can’t be limited to one genre, but the truth is I’m a horror writer. Even when I don’t set out to write something scary, elements of horror always find their way into my work, but hopefully they don’t obscure the beauty. I want my work to be spooky but also dreamy, sad, romantic, and steeped in LA lore whenever possible — a sort of goth Lana Del Rey maybe. Lana Del Grave?!
My work attempts to marry the gorgeous imagery and LA vibes of Francesca Lia Block with the atmospheric setting and nebulous horror of Shirley Jackson. That’s not to say it even approaches the greatness of their work, but those two legends are my main sources of literary inspiration.
While I have a place in my heart for all of my creative offspring, I think what I’m most proud of is my most recent work: The songs I’ve written and recorded with my husband in the past few years, the short stories I’ve published in the past year, and the novel I’m writing now. I feel like my best work is still ahead of me, truly.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Despite my preference for dark aesthetics, I’m actually a pretty positive person, or at least I try to be. Also, I like ghost stories and witches and cemeteries and spooky/beautiful things, but I find violence hard to stomach, unless it’s so over-the-top it’s intentionally funny. I try not to kill insects, except for mosquitoes. And I love romantic comedies and Hallmark movies — I find them very relaxing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.melissapleckham.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mpleckham/
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/blacklullabies
Image Credits
Lisa Whitmore
