A forerunner in the UK arts industry, Melanie has been furthering the art of literature, poetry, and spoken word, for over 20 years.

She’s founder and Creative Director/Curator of independent organisation Renaissance One and the long-running spoken word project Tilt, both of which have made regular use of live events, tours and commissions to highlight the diverse canons of British and international literature and orature.

As an active freelancer in the creative industries, she consistently pushes for greater diversity in the arts, with a focus on orality and the narratives of race, class, mixed-race identities and intersectionality.  She curates what she sees and feels.

Much of Melanie’s practice is about nurturing relationships with artists and creative practitioners over many years and across projects. Examples of these include a British Writing Showcase for Miami Book Fair International (1999), the project Tongue Fu Flicks co-developed with Chris Redmond and his Tongue Fu organisation for BBC/Arts Council England’s The Space, a collaboration with Chris Ofili on Freedom One Day, a book and spoken word event, and various collaborations with Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad, Southbank Centre in London and Bluecoat in Liverpool.

In 2020 she received an Honorary Fellowship from The Royal Society of Literature. In 2008, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

In addition to her roles as part of the Renaissance One and Tilt teams, she is the creator of a festival of Caribbean arts and culture, Caribbeanfest, which started out in 2019 as a live one-day showcase at the British Library and in 2020 evolved as an online festival, and prior to that year, was called London Is The Place For Me. From 2021 to 2022, she was the Curator & Caribbean Community Engagement Consultant for UP Projects who were appointed by the Government and the Windrush Commemoration Committee chaired by Baroness Floella Benjamin to commission the national Windrush Monument which was unveiled in June 2022.

Her large scale projects have included Testing Ground a series of industry panels, creativity talks and 50 one-to-one mentoring sessions to practitioners around England; and The Independence Project,  twenty events exploring autonomy and independence, including a one-day festival at the British Library. 

Her 2017 to 2022 initiatives have included curating a series of Caribbean festivals of literature and culture, London Is The Place For Me, in partnership with the British Library, talks and masterclasses on leadership, diversity and careers (Speaking Art and Life), a guest curator role for the Bronte Parsonage and Museum exploring the themes of 'other' / otherness through a creative walk, a talk on Emily Bronte in relation to the racial and social histories of the mid-nineteenth century (Emily Speaks); a curator role for the People of Letters Response Gallery for the Museum of Colour (with Pitt Rivers Museum) for which she commissioned ten writers and one composer including Will Harris, Kei Miller, Degna Stone, Daljit Nagra, Jay Bernard and Naomi Sumner Chan; a curator role for the Slate Weekender, a City of Ideas project commissioned by Site Gallery in partnership with Eclipse Theatre, producing tours, book launches and events for John Agard, Bernardine Evaristo OBE, Leone Ross, Kei Miller, Penny Pepper, Patience Agbabi, Caryl Phillips, Gary Younge, Shara McCallum, the late Michael Horovitz and Shivanee Ramlochan; and co-curating with Ella Mesma a series of online creative and wellbeing Socials for artists and creatives of colour for Eclipse Online’s Slate World.

Talks presented in 2022 have included This, That and the Other for the Taking The Mic: Black British Poetry Since 1965 Conference in November 2022, a conversation with artist Sonia Barrett for her Rush Me project commissioned by Up Projects and a podcast on intersectionality with the poet Chérie Taylor Battiste.

In 2021 and 2022, Melanie is collaborating with Australian-based arts consultant Kath Melbourne to deliver a THIS IS WHO WE ARE Mentoring Programme that has been open to women of colour based in the UK and Australia. The project formed part of the British Council’s UK-Australia Season and also created live events, gatherings and occasions to join together, and an online festival in March 2022. Plans are apace to evolve This Is Who We Are into a coterie of intersectional and intergenerational womxn artists and creatives who share knowledge, friendship and solidarity and who shape projects and progress together across borders and modes of communication.