Jennie Melamed

Jennie Melamed

Jennie Melamed is the author of the fiction work Gather the Daughters. Outside of her writing, she works full-time as a psychiatric nurse who works with traumatized children. In college, she studied cultural, biological, and anthropological elements of child abuse.

As for writing, it is something Melamed has been doing for a long time as she always had an obsession with tropical islands, animals, princesses, and unicorns. In middle school, she heavily plagiarized from Secret of the Unicorn Queen but she shifted to short stories and poetry when she got writer's block.

During her teenage years, Jennie Melamed read the greats such as Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Charlotte Bronte which made her want to write stories just like what she was reading. She still reads constantly even as an adult and prefers to read the classics from W.E.B. Dubois and Henry James.

Since Melamed works a day job, she writes whenever she has the time and hence she writes everywhere and anytime she gets inspiration. She currently lives with her husband in Seattle.

In 2017, Jennie Melamed published her novel Gather the Daughters.

The work is set on an island where the community lives according to the rules the original ten ancestors wrote when they founded their society. No one questions the rules and no one ever visits the wasteland except for about ten people directly descended from the founders.

Some of the rules are that daughters who enter puberty have to submit to their fathers and during the summer they have to participate in a sexual experiment. During that summer, they will have to choose their husbands and after that, they will be expected to get married and give birth to two children.

Most of the rules are complicated, and strict and make it possible for enforcers to abuse kids. However, things are different during the summer as the children can run free and wild and no adult is allowed to restrain them in any way.

Jennie Melamed: Awards & Accolades

Melamed's book, Gather the Daughters was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Best Science Fiction Novel, in 2018.

Related Authors

Fans of Jennie Melamed also enjoy these authors:

1. Michael Connelly, author of the Harry Bosch Series.
2. Dan Brown, author of the Robert Langdon Series.
3. Lisa Scottoline, author of the Rosato & Associates Series.
4. Tana French, author of the Dublin Murder Squad Series.
5. Tess Gerritsen, author of the Rizzoli & Isles Series.

Jennie Melamed: F.A.Q