Melody Ellis is a writer and creative practice researcher based in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University where she is a member of the non/fictionLab research group and co-convenes the Gutter Stars comics collective with Ronnie Scott.
Melody’s writing and research explore questions of power, the body, language, art and knowledge: what counts as knowledge, how it is produced and authorised, and what forms of knowing and experience are culturally valued or devalued. Having lived experience of disability, Melody’s writing and thinking are attentive to the interconnectedness of social, embodied and ecological life. Her intellectual and creative practice is shaped by critical theory, psychoanalysis, and a long history of participation in artist-led collaborative projects.
Melody has significant expertise in arts management, exhibitions practice, research development, and creative practice research. Her writing has appeared in numerous literary and scholarly publications, including Cordite Poetry Review, Meanjin, AXON, Mekong Review and TEXT Journal of Writing and Writing Courses.
Melody was a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council funded project ‘Connecting Asia-Pacific Literary Cultures: Grounds, Encounter and Exchange’ (2021-2025) and is the current nonfiction editor of Southerly. Her current research is interested in reading.
I acknowledge the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands I am fortunate to live, work and parent. I pay my respects to the Ancestors and Elders of the lands and waterways where I live, as well as to the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waterways across the continent more broadly. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land.