Melinda Mueller was born in Montana and raised in Spokane. She trained as a biologist and is on the science faculty at Seattle Academy of Arts & Sciences.  Author of six books of poetry, including just published Mary’s Dust. (Entre Ríos Books, 2017) Her book, What the Ice Gets: Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition, 1914-1916 (Van West & Company) received a 2001 Washington State Book Award and the American Library Notable Books Award for Poetry in 2002. Her other books of poetry are Private Gallery (Seal Press, 1976),  Asleep in Another Country (Jawbone Press, 1979), Apocrypha (Grey Spider Press, 1988), and The After (Entre Ríos Books). Melinda was a coauthor of an early list of rare, threatened, and endangered plant species of Washington State. 
Melinda Mueller’s great gift is translating historical detail and scientific fact into profound human experience. Long-awaited Mary’s Dust is a tour de force, a klatch of history’s Marys speaking through a stunning array of formal constraints—much as they did in life. Each Mary emerges from Mueller’s precise and brilliant word choice and imagery to linger “with a faint ringing.”   Mary’s Dust is an ambitious, awe-inspiring, marvelous collection. —Kathleen Flenniken, author of Plume. 
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