Melissa Walker ’99

Spending a day in the life with two male models? Attending an elite finishing school for girls in New Zealand? Appearing as a talking head “expert” on VH1’s The Fabulous Life of Celebrity Kids? These make up the daily drudge that is Melissa Walker, class of ’99’s, day-to-day life.

Graduating with a major in English and a minor in Spanish literature, Melissa rose through the ranks of teen magazines Seventeen Prom and ELLEgirl to become editor and features editor respectively. While not traveling and interviewing young stars for her editorial work, Melissa is working on her own collection of young adult books. Her first novel, Violet on the Runway, tracks the adventures (and misadventures) of a teenage girl who is thrust into the modeling industry without any previous experience. She has since published two more novels in the “Violet” series, Violet by Design and Violet in Private and, most recently, a novel entitled Lovestruck Summer. Up next for Melissa is the publication of her latest work, Small Town Sinners.

Melissa currently lives in Brooklyn, where she maintains a blog focused on recent young adult publications and continues to write—if not living every teenage girl’s dream, at the very least writing about it.