We recently connected with Melissa Lemay and have shared our conversation below.

Melissa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’m going to rewrite the script here, because most people perceive a professional to be someone who is engaged in a particular activity as a main source of income. As a child, I don’t know that I completely grasped that concept, nor did I want to grow up to be a professional if that meant working incredibly long hours doing something that wasn’t fulfilling.
I don’t remember when I learned to read; I have a specific memory of being in the dentist’s office and reading a plaque that was hung on the wall that was far beyond the reading level of a six-year-old, my age at the time. The receptionist always gushed about how well I could read.
By the first grade, I was consuming chapter books. By second and third grade I was reading novels by the likes of Brian Jacques, Stephen King, Anne Rice. I loved reading, and I loved to write. I filled diary after diary, the smallish ones with locks and keys.
I wrote my first ‘real’ story, a mystery, when I was in sixth grade. I just about filled one of those spiral-bound notebooks that’s about 70 sheets. I remember I wrote 60 double sided pages. I shared it with a couple of my teachers, asking for feedback. The first said it was too beautiful to mark up; and the other, my Language Arts teacher at the time, told me I had “a beautiful way with words”, one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.
These are the things I recall, when thinking about growing a passion for writing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So, I knew I wanted to write from a young age. It’s what I loved to do, had a passion for. Choices I made along the way derailed me a little bit. I wish I would have finished college, but I didn’t. Obviously that would have opened more doors for me.
Today I write mostly for pleasure, and it is wonderful to be read. I picked up a pen again about two years ago to write poetry for the first time in…years. In that time I’ve written over 770 poems and many flash fiction pieces.
I’d love to do editing work. One of the things I’m most proud of is my meticulous dedication to a task. It frustrates me to see errors in publication, which are everywhere these days. If it’s in a publication, there should be absolutely no errors. I could offer help in that area to anyone self-publishing, even to some of the people running publishing houses. I think my striving for perfection in the written word sets me apart from many, and an extra fresh set of eyes does not hurt. There is no 99% in perfection.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

My journey is my story. To share a lot of the back story that became experience in different realms would be lengthy. I guess I had a semi-normal childhood, but around age sixteen I started using drugs and became addicted to heroin, among others. I used whatever I could get my hands on.
Later, memories resurfaced of sexual abuse that happened to me as a small child, around the age of two or three years old. I allowed that to lead me further into a dark abyss. In addition to addiction, I struggled through eating disorders and mental health battles.
Fast forward to today, in August, I celebrated 15 years of continuous abstinence from drugs (including alcohol); I have done a lot of work and grown into the person I am. It wasn’t easy, especially since I continued getting into relationships that were abusive and overall negative, and I had three children along the way.
I am a single mother. My youngest, his father passed away. My older two don’t see their father. Through all this, I was finally cracked open to let something else in. For me, this was Jesus.
I have turned my life around. I have not dated anyone for almost four years, and I don’t intend to. I am finally building myself up, instead of cycling through a self-fulfilling prophecy of generational addiction and abuse.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Yes. What began as a blog to share my experiences in my walk with Jesus has blossomed into an adventure. I started writing short articles about my day to day life, correlating them with Biblical scripture. People responded. Through a network of other writers and creatives, I found my way into various writing groups, publications, and writing workshops. I am thriving, and so is my writing.
Beginning in the new year, I will have a monthly women’s Bible Verse Reflections group through Garden of Neuro Institute. We will hold space for women from all walks of life to gather, connect, contemplate, and reflect in a safe space.
Additionally, in January, I am launching a new online journal for poetry and fiction, called Collaborature. I must credit Nigel Byng for helping me with the name. The journal is geared towards collaborative writing, in other words, writing where two or more people have participated in some way. I want to encourage people to work together.
Love is my mission, to share that with the world, it is so desperately needed. I want every person to know how loved he or she is. I am excited to see where that takes me on my creative journey as it continues to open doors.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://melissalemay.wordpress.com
• Other: https://dversepoets.com/
  https://spillwords.com/?s=Melissa+Lemay