Meet
Mel Hartman
Urban Fantasy Young Adult & Youth Author
Mel Hartman (aka Melissa Vandeputte) is a Flemish author who began writing poetry, novels, children's stories and plays at the age of nine. As an adolescent, she became fascinated by parapsychology, mythology, ufology, magic and dreams. Strange phenomena and strong women who save things are her thing.Â
For her secondary studies, she chose art history. For her higher studies, she chose clinical psychology. She got a dream job right after graduation (literally) at a sleep center where she worked as a sleep analyst, and she still does so on a freelance basis. So the dream world percolates not only at night and in her books, but also IRL. She also works with the cultural center De Grote Post in Ostend. After several wanderings, including in the Netherlands, Mel lives with her partner Oded and dog Kiwi back in her hometown of Ostend, in a small farmhouse.Â
A mixed fantasy-sc-fi series appeared between 2007 and 2011 with the volumes: 'The Fantasy Hunters', 'Dreamless', 'Fear Dream' and 'Dreamscape'. In between also appeared the urban fantasy 'Different: a Manon Maxim novel', a number of columns, scientific essays and a few collections of stories in which the strange, the (pseudo)scientific and the futuristic are always present ('Game of Borders' and 'Splendid World').Â
"The Death Series" is her debut with Hamley Books. She will also debut as a children's author in 2021.
