Melissa Newman- is an award-winning journalist and writer, having spent 20 years in the newspaper industry rising to the ranks of editor and publisher. She has called Southeastern Kentucky home all her life and truly embraces the title of southern writer, bestowed upon her by loyal readers. She credits her writing talent to a colorful family full of natural storytellers and her writing ability to three English professors at Union College, her alma mater. These professors aided in the discovery of Newman’s true calling. It was then that Newman changed her major from accounting, an area in which she was struggling, to English and journalism a major in which she excelled.  Shortly thereafter, Newman’s journalism career began an upward spiral and even before finishing college, the local daily newspaper, then-called the Corbin Times, recruited her to work as a full-time reporter. By the age of twenty-six, she had become the first female and the youngest editor at the Barbourville Mountain Advocate, one of the most politically-driven and oldest newspapers in Kentucky. As a journalist, Newman has written hundreds of feature stories about people and places in Southeastern Kentucky and elsewhere; covered several murders from the crime scene investigation to the courtroom sentencing; penned government corruption news; and has been instrumental in nudging local and state government to take action through her editorials and news columns. During her time in the newspaper industry, Newman won many journalism awards, seized the opportunity to write for various news magazines and had several stories published by the Associated Press. Later in her career, while working as a newspaper editor in Central Kentucky, Newman got her feet wet in television journalism as well. During her time as editor at the Kentucky Standard in Bardstown, she delivered an evening television newscast three nights a week for viewers in the Golden Triangle, just south of Louisville. Although Newman enjoyed life in the newspaper industry, she felt something was missing. Her focus had gradually shifted to a concentration of the bottom line instead of what she loved most about newspapering, the written word. Newman now works as Alumni Relations Director at Union College in Barbourville, Ky. This new career allows for more focus not only on writing but also on the type of writing she adores, fiction. Newman’s first novel began with an idea in 1997, which led to an outline that she stuffed in a drawer and didn’t rediscover again for over 10 years. Once the writing was finished, a publishing contract came quickly. Newman’s first novel, Sister Blackberry, was released by Whiskey Creek Press in November 2009. The novel begins with the discovery of a dead body and carries the reader through three generations of the Garland women of Rayes County. Set in 1936 rural Kentucky and Northern Ohio, Sister Blackberry is a story about women: friends, sisters, mothers, daughters and granddaughters, and how their relationships are affected by the secrets they keep. House of Cleaving, Newman’s latest novel, scheduled for release in fall 2010, is a story about a young woman who fears her own life is beginning to mirror that of her late mother: uneventful, one dimensional and passive. While making plans to remodel her house, Annie Cleaving learns she is holding a faulty deed to the only home she’s ever known. While in search of all the heirs who could lay claim to the property, she finds herself in the midst of people who remember her mother quite differently from the calm, quiet, patient caregiver she always knew. Newman lives in Kentucky with her husband Frank, who is an attorney. They have two grown daughters. Visit Melissa Newman’s Web site at www.melissanewman.net