About - Short Form
Melissa Stewart was born in Wisconsin but spent the second half of her childhood in New Hampshire. There, Stewart learned to love both the beauty and the haunting qualities of expansive, woody wilderness and old, history-filled places.
When Stewart graduated high school, she left for Indiana to study at Butler University. There, she earned a Bachelor’s of Music Education focusing on K-12 choral/vocal instruction. Upon earning her degree, she married her soulmate and quickly began a family.
During her third pregnancy, Stewart rediscovered her love for creative writing, reigniting her childhood desire of becoming an author.
M.O. Stewart currently resides in the woods of southern New Hampshire with her husband, their three children, the family cat, and a few rabbits. If she isn’t writing, she is likely making music, gaming, crocheting, crafting perfumes, baking, watching horror, or generally getting herself into some variety of unhinged mischief.
Continue scrolling for a more detailed (and dare I say, “interesting?”) biography.
Melissa Stewart was born in Wisconsin but spent the second half of her childhood in New Hampshire. There, Stewart learned to love both the beauty and the haunting qualities of expansive, woody wilderness and old, history filled places. When Stewart graduated high school, she left for Indiana to study at Butler University. There, she earned a Bachelor’s of Music Education focusing on K-12 choral/vocal instruction. Upon earning her degree, Stewart married her soul mate and quickly began a family. During her third pregnancy, Stewart rediscovered her love for creative writing, reigniting her childhood desire of becoming an author. Now, Stewart is refining two different manuscripts - a horror/suspense and a fictional memoir - in hopes of choosing one with which to begin querying agents at the end of 2024. MO Stewart currently resides in the woods of southern New Hampshire with her husband, their three children, the family cat, and a few rabbits. If she isn’t writing, she is likely making music, crocheting, crafting perfumes, baking, watching horror, or generally getting herself into some variety of unhinged mischief.
About - Long Form
Melissa Stewart was born in northern Wisconsin where she lived during her earliest years. When she was nine years old, her father’s Coast Guard assignment relocated the family back to her mother’s native New England. Growing up split between wide open spaces dotted with cornfields and closed-in valleys surrounded by trees and lakes, Stewart gained the best of both worlds; she fell in love equally with nature and agriculture, one minute craving talkative woods, the other yearning for cultivated fields.
In New England especially, however, Stewart came to know and love the possibilities of ghost stories, the danger of hidden secrets in old places, and the fear of strange things hiding amongst the trees.
Upon graduating high school, Stewart returned to the Midwest to study Music Education at Indiana’s Butler University. There she culminated her studies in a Bachelor’s of Music Education degree focusing on K-12 choral/vocal instruction, which is a fancy way to say that despite aspiring to published authorship, MO Stewart actually holds a music degree for singing.
Two weeks post college graduation, Stewart married her freshman year lost-and-later-found-again sweetheart. Matrimony metamorphosed her name from her maiden, Oittinen (the eponymous “O” of “M.O.” ) to Stewart. Soon, the pair began a family. Quickly thereafter, singing graciously took a backseat to the joys of childrearing and other domesticities.
Throughout the years of pregnancy when certain artistic endeavors were not always easily entertained, Stewart rediscovered reading and creative writing. Most notably, it was during her third pregnancy that Stewart was gifted a book (which she never finished reading) that, for better or worse, reignited her childhood desire to become an author. A little over a year later of writing almost exclusively on her phone while taking care of the kids, Stewart is refining a paranormal horror manuscript with hopes of querying agents at the beginning of 2025.
M.O. Stewart currently resides in the woods of southern New Hampshire with her soulmate husband and three children - two boys and one girl - whose initials (in birth order) spell, BEE. Also residing with the Stewarts are their Siberian cat, Peach, and Harlequin rabbits, Prima and Verdi. If she isn’t writing, Stewart is likely making music, gaming, crocheting, crafting perfumes, baking, watching horror, or generally getting herself into some variety of unhinged mischief.
