Melva’s screenplays have won awards at international festivals, including Action on Film, Austin, Indie Gathering, the International Family Film Festival, Moondance, and SFU’s Praxis. Her period romance, Nylon Days, made the quarterfinals of the 2014 Nicholl Fellowships (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences).
Melva was also a recipient of a 2014 National Screen Institute Drama Prize. The film, Chopin’s Heart (which Mel adapted from the short story “In-Sook” by Emily Givner) will be making the festival rounds this fall. Mel will be writing and producing a second short in 2015.
The current owner of Blue Coulee Productions and a former book editor (and Tom Fairley Prize winner), Mel still edits a novel or two a year and is a frequent contributor to the Editors’ Association of Canada’s blog: http://blog.editors.ca/?p=2945