Your Summer, Your Series: Author Spotlight - Melane

Have you ever dreamed of escaping your life? Wondered what it might be like to find a new home overseas?

Maybe you’ve done it. I used to imagine it.

Then I found out that I qualified for a UK ancestry visa, and my heart decided to move.

In 2017, I arrived in Edinburgh. Getting there was a whole process, involving everything from selling most of my possessions to navigating mountains of paperwork. I emerged in a context that blended culture shock and familiarity.

I grew up as an immigrant. My American family moved to Prince Edward Island, Canada when I was a baby. I loved the place where I spent my formative years, but I always felt a sense of being “from away.” I suspect this feeling of displacement made it easier for me to go elsewhere. I lived in San Francisco for six years before moving to the UK, and I traveled a lot, including for university internships in the Northwest Territories and Bhutan.

While living and working in the UK, I’ve gone from Edinburgh to London to Brighton. I’ve lived through the COVID-19 pandemic and upheavals in my personal life. I’ve acquired a new citizenship.

This book touches on all of these experiences–from prior wandering to acclimation to the UK, from seeing pieces of a new life come together to feeling them fall apart.

Wandering is in my family tree. I doubt this is my final destination. But wherever I may end up in the future, this experience has changed me. The poems and illustrations in this book are my attempt to show how.

Learn more about Melanie Bell on her Author's Page

And don't forget to include The Heart Decided to Move as part of the Your Summer, Your Series reading bundle.