Melanie Johnston graduated from Northwestern University a long,long time ago. (She no longer talks about dates.)
After graduation, she began working as a professional writer at Ogilvy & Mather in Chicago. She later wrote for Leo Burnett working on clients like McDonalds, Cheer, 7 UP and prospective television shows. During this time, she began teaching writing (at night) at City College of Chicago and later, Northwestern. Moving to San Francisco, she wrote for Hal Riney & Partners on a variety of projects. Finally, going out on her own, she freelanced in the Bay Area and around the country including writing a short film for Conservation International in Washington DC.
She has contributed to The San Francisco Chronicle, has a regular column in the Piedmont Post called Dear Abby the Bernese Mountain Dog and has written for National Public Radio’s Perspectives. In the summer of 2007, Merriam Press published What My Father Saw –a memoir about the photographs her father took when he entered Buchenwald Concentration Camp as a liberator. Melanie is also a member of the Wednesday Writers and was included in the anthology Something That Matters. She is currently working on a novel entitled Canines for Christ, which features .among other things, her two dogs, Abby and Floyde.
