User talk:Avirtualbiz

Melissa "Mel" Bentley Edwards
(B. August 27, 1968) Melissa Ann Bentley was born in Glens Falls, NY on the day Abbie Hoffman et al. were arrested in Chicago at the offset of the Democratic National Convention. Her childhood home was located across the street from the city cemetery where she was eventually chased out by a groundskeeper for having a picnic by the pond. She graduated from Glens Falls High School in 1986 at the age of 17.

Education and Certifications

She holds an AA in Liberal Arts (Adirondack Community College, 1989), BA in English/Education (SUNY New Paltz, 1991) and a MA in Storytelling (East Tennessee State University, 2006). She hopes to continue her education throughout her lifetime, even though a doctor once told her she's on her way to having more degrees than a thermometer.

Mel is also a Reiki master teacher in both Usui and Karuna traditions, and is an Ashtanga yoga primary series instructor.

Life

As a child, Melissa asipired to be a ballerina like her neighbor who eventually entered the NY City ballet. However, the cost of lessons was not in line with her family's budget and Melissa's teacher told her mother she would never have a professional career as a dancer if she were to only be as tall as her mother (who was 4'8" tall). This conversation ended Melissa's dance lessons and her dream. Mel has lived and worked around the nation near some of the most popular American tourist attractions and vacation destinations: the Adirondack Mountains of NY, northern Arizona (Flagstaff, Sedona and a few place between), near Glacier National Park in Eureka, MT, attended college near the Great Smoky Mountains of TN, taught near Myrtle Beach and the upstate area of Greenville County, SC.

Mel met her husband in Tennessee while she was working on her master's degree at East Tennessee State University and was married to J. Brandon Edwards in Jonesborough, home of the National Storytelling Festival, and oldest town in Tennessee, on Valentine's Day in 2003. She has no children but claims to be "mama" to three rabbits: Poppet, Foofer and Rudie.

Honors, Awards, Recognition

Mel Edwards is a member of several honorary and professional organizations: Kappa Delta Pi educational honor fraternity. National Residence Hall Honorary. South Carolina Storytelling Network.

Mel is the author of "Laughing in the Shadow: The Role of Humor in Ghost Story Telling" which examined the role of humor in telling multiple variations of the story Tailypo by nationally acclaimed storytellers. This research was completed in part with the help of a grant for scholarly research given by the National Storytelling Network in 2006.

Mel was a 2008 award winner and honorable mention recipient in the Poetry Society of Virginia's annual poetry contest with her poems "Teachers" and "Apiary Act."

Mel is best noted as an interviewer of creative people and artists. Her work is a hybrid of storytelling and journalism, similar to Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" blended with Studs Terkel's "Working." This work has earned her grant sponsorship from the Metropolitan Arts Council and helped her win the Martin Luther King Dream Weekend, Dream Contest - General category, in Greenville, SC. Jan. 2009. Additionally, her dedication to assisting her interviewees and others live "their truth" won her free registration at the annual BlogHer conference, to be held July 2009 in Chicago.

Websites
   Avirtualbiz (talk) 21:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)