FICTION
Girl Who Turns to Rabbits (republished), Double Review, 2023.
What it’s like, being seventeen, Mudroom, 2022.
When my therapist diagnoses me with myrmecophilous, I tell you right away, Yemassee, 2021.
Hallmark Christmas Movie Plot Generator, Wigleaf, 2021.
Runaway, Psychopomp Magazine, 2020.
Little Ghost, The Forge, 2020.
nominated for The Best Short Fictions
Gardens, Pidgeonholes, 2020.
nominated for The Best Small Fictions
Exquisite Silence, Paper Darts, 2019.
SUBJECT LEFT BLANK - ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO SEND? Jellyfish Review, 2019.
Heartspace, Necessary Fiction, 2019.
The Innkeeper, Flock, 2018.
Ivy, Flash Fiction Online, 2018.
Blind Date with Ellipses (and others), Necessary Fiction, 2018.
Darkness, The Collapsar, 2018.
End of the World, Superstition Review, 2018.
Ants from Different Colonies, The Cabal, 2018.
Sapphires, The Forge, 2018.
The Girl Who Turns to Rabbits, Squalorly Lit, 2017.
Pioneer Woman, Past Simple, 2016.
Lucky, Artful Dodge, 2016.
She Wants, She Gets, Sundog Lit, 2016.
Daughters of Monsters, Gigantic Sequins, 2016.
The Reappearing Man, Revolver Magazine, 2015.
Anna George, Passages North, 2015.
These 13 Certain Things, PANK, 2014.
Super, Kenyon Review Online, 2014.
School, Word Riot, 2014.
Telephone: A Story in First Sentences, Artifice Magazine, 2011.
The Vanishing Horse, Noo Weekly, 2011.
Pangaea, Killauthor, 2011.
The Astronaut, American Short Fiction, 2011.
The Love-Hate Theses, Phoebe, 2011.
For Good, PANK, 2010.
COLLABORATIONS
The Boy Who Arrives in the Box, Passages North, 2019.
The School Mascot, Moon City Review, 2019.
Anything Can Be a Weapon, Heavy Feather Review, 2019.
The Substitute, CRAFT, 2019.
Some Days the Bees are Melancholic, The Offing, 2018.
Q&A with Melissa Goodrich and Dana Diehl, The Offing, 2018.
The Janitor’s Stars, Sundog Lit, 2017.
Sundog Lit Flash Fiction Collaborative Contest Finalist
Nominated for a Pushcart in 2018
Spy Girl, Adroit Journal, 2017.
The Girl Who Turns to Rabbits, Squalorly Lit, 2017.
The Boy Who Turns to Toads, Necessary Fiction, 2016.
The Floating Away School, Indianola Review, 2016.
The Classroom Beneath Our Classroom, Passages North, 2016.
Nominated for a Pushcart by Black Lawrence Press, 2016.
ANTHOLOGIES
Anna, Coyotes: Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, forthcoming from Imago Press.
The Classroom Beneath Our Classroom, They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing, Black Lawrence Press, 2018.
Where Dust Storms May Exist, Anthology of Etiquette and Terrifying Angels with Many Heads, NAP Press, 2012.
POETRY
WHEN YOU WRITE YOUR THANKSGIVING CARD TO THE POLICE AFTER YOUR BRAIN WAS STOLEN AND YOU NEEDED HELP FILING THE INCIDENT REPORT, Gigantic Sequins, 2020.
Introduction Paragraph, Sundog Lit, 2020.
Small Fish, Pidgeonholes, 2019.
Aubade with To-Do List, The Collagist, 2019.
Stardew, Cartridge Lit, 2017.
IF YOU WHAT, Fourth and Verse Books, Chapbook Prize Winner 2012.
PODCASTS
Dana Diehl & Melissa Goodrich, Limited Engagement, 2019
The Girl Who Turns to White Rabbits, Bestiary Podcast, 2019
CRAFT ESSAYS & NONFICTION
Listen Like a Poet: Let Language Oxygenate Your Fiction, Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo, 2021
Writing stories for me always starts as a kind of listening—coming to the page is cupping my ears and closing my eyes, listening for a voice or an image to let me into a narrative, before there is even a character or narrative beats.
Writing and listening—language and silence—this is how I keep my stories alive. I’m trying to tell you: the sounds a sentence makes matter. The sounds a story is making tells us the thing it wants to be.
Diving Into the Faery Handbag: On Fabulism, Electric Lit, 2016
Fabulism makes the emotional reality the actual reality. It’s more real to confront your demons when they are in the room with you. So, you can’t escape. Amber Sparks writes that “It’s a perfect time to turn ourselves inside out by turning the world around us outside in.” Meaning fabulism privileges how it feels –it’s real because it feels real.
PRESS
Tucson authors explore magical school stories in new book, Johanna Willett, The Arizona Daily Star
Two Tucsonans Place in Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, Ann Brown, The Arizona Daily Star
The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Anna George” by Melissa Goodrich, Plougshares
Read 15 Amazing Works of Fiction in Less Than 30 Minutes, The Huffington Post
Friday Fiction Recommendation: “School” by Melissa Goodrich, The Witty Agent
AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS
2018 Passage’s North Waasnode Fiction Prize, for the story “The Boy Who Arrives in a Box”
2017 Sundog Lit Flash Fiction Contest Finalist, for the story “The Janitor’s Stars”
2016 Tucson Festival of Books Fiction Award, for the story "Anna"
2016 Pushcart Prize Nomination, for the story "Anna George"
2013 Margaret Sterling Memorial Award, for the poems "Hence/Literally/OED/Obsolete," "Selections from the Iliad," and "Insider"
2013 AWP Intro Award, for the story "Lucky"
2012 Academy of American Poets Prize, for the poems "Rattles," "Two Directions, "Watch Stopped Sort of Prophetically on a Plane," and others
2012 Fourth and Verse Chapbook Contest winner, for the chapbook IF YOU WHAT
2012 Laverne Harrell Clark Fiction Award - Honorable Mention, for the story "Birthday People"
2012 University of Arizona Foundation Award, for the poem "On Lonely and Letting It"
2011 Juliet Gison Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Writer, selected by Nick Ripatrazone
2010 Fellowship for the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets
2010 Juliet Gibson Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Writer, selected by Catherine Pierce