Melinda Burns is a status member of the Lower Mohawk First Nation. She is the daughter of a Mohawk mother and an English father. Her short stories have placed first in the 2001 Toronto Star Short Story contest and in the 2006 Elora Writers’ Festival contest. Her essay, "Legacy", was a finalist in the 2023 Prism International Creative Non-fiction contest. Her stories, essays, and poems have appeared in the New Quarterly, Grain, the Fiddlehead, Canadian Notes and Queries, Native Skin, and One Art. Her collection poems, Homecoming, was published by BookLand Press in 2025.
Melinda lives in Guelph, Ontario. She writes to try to understand this life without destroying the mystery; to excavate, untangle, set free.
