I was born in 1962 in Medford, Massachusetts to a Sicilian-American mother and Nova Scotian-American father. My mother was a teacher, and my father ran a backhoe. I grew up surrounded by three younger sisters and a large extended Italian family. Every year or so, I spent a week or two in Nova Scotia with my paternal grandmother. In 2019, I secured dual Canadian citizenship.
I attended college in Wisconsin where I obtained a BA in fine arts; later, as a graduate student in public administration, I was selected to participate the Presidential Management Internship program. For eight years, I worked on crime victims’ issues for the U.S. Department of Justice, returning to Massachusetts in 1998.
In 2000 I had my son. While raising him, I obtained a second graduate degree in public health and joined the faculty at Boston University’s Writing Program in 2008. My course addresses scientific racism and the American eugenics movement.
After my boy, writing is my first love. In 2019, I graduated from the GrubStreet Writers’ Memoir Incubator program. I also enjoy baking bread, waltz and contra-dancing, working in my garden, and race-walking.
Thanks for reading my work.
— Melanie
Beata Infantia 