The official bio:
Melissa Anne Tolentino is a Filipina American writer currently based in the Washington, DC metro area. Her poetry and fiction have been recognized by a number of publications and organizations, including Rust + Moth, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Adroit Prizes, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. She can be found on Twitter @sometimesabard.
The stuff I'd rather say:
I’m Melissa. I grew up on the Internet, and also on two different continents. I’ve been writing since I was 4, except I didn’t know words then, so I was drawing. Once I did learn what words were, it was the end (or the beginning).
Most of my writing is on this site. In the real world, I am a comms professional, know a lot about Japanese pop culture, and have extremely bad vision.
The cat in the photo:
His name is Bagel.
