My name is Laura Meltzer, and I am a student of Melanie’s I say student in the present tense because her guidance, her spirit, compassion, sense of self, and of the world is ever-present. And I will never cease to be a student of these things.

I was a part of the last class that Melanie taught at Queens College and had the privilege to work with her, reading and re-reading an amazing manuscript. We sat together for many hours, days, months, and even a year or two, reciting her words. Her writing embodies a truly powerful inner voice ~ one which reverberates from mind to  paper  to mouth.

Along the way, she taught me the importance of laughing at yourself until you cry from hilarity; she enforced a joyousness – one which is in so much danger of becoming extinct.

The woman in front of me, eyes bright, hair forever springing back into her face, emanated a force of Radicalism unto its own. Becoming so well acquainted with Melanie’s work helped me in finding my own voice. Melanie taught me what it means to write with a sense of self or maybe in search of that –

I stuck around after class to talk about the readings and honestly find a reason to exist just right there, in her presence. She was the first and only one I confided in when someone in our student activist group came out (to me!) as an anti-Semite. In turn, she recommended that I meet more Jews.

Those who move the world use their experiences as gifts: the good, the bad, anger, frustration, humiliation. It’s what makes us human in a foreign world. Melanie had a gift of never letting that down. Her life work proves that writing is not only for our bodies, ourselves, but for others – with others.

I miss her, but if I close my eyes ever-so gently, I can see her study, the books which line the walls and – I’m taking it all in, the authors and titles which informed her – and I’m realizing all along, she was the real deal. More powerful, more illustrative certainly, than any book could be.

All along it was her I was meant to know, to learn from. And for that, I am forever grateful.

Thank you.