Melissa A Watkins is a new writer, an old teacher, and a lifelong fan of fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction. She's surprised every time Luke Skywalker finds out who his real father is, fights the air whenever Rue dies in The Hunger Games, and wonders out loud why Frodo never met a Black elf. The search for Black women in speculative fiction takes up a lot of her free time and she's looking forward to sharing it with everyone through this course. Melissa studied at Western Colorado University(B.A. Communications and Theatre) and the University of Manchester, UK(M.A. General Theology). You can find her non-fiction writing in the anthologies Trailblasian: Black Women in East Asia and Black In Asia: A SpillStories Anthology. Her fiction has been published in midnight & indigo and Flash In A Flash.