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Melissa Fay Greene

Melissa Fay Greene

Melissa Fay Greene, a native of Macon, Georgia, and longtime Atlanta resident, is the author of three critically-acclaimed works of nonfiction: Praying for Sheetrock (1991), The Temple Bombing (1996), and Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster (2002). The first two were finalists for the National Book Award, and Sheetrock was included on the "J" list of the 100 best works of English-language radio, television, or print journalism of the 20th century.

Melissa's new book, There is No Me Without You (September 2006, Bloomsbury) tells the story of a middle-aged, middle-class Ethiopian woman named Haregewoin Teferra. First her husband, the high school principal, died of a heart attack; then her beloved 23-year-old daughter was consumed by an unnamed disease. In profound grief, Haregewoin spent a year sitting beside their graves, then gave up and tried to leave the world for the seclusion of the church. The church asked her first if she would house a teenage orphan. The first teenager was followed by another child, and another, until the church was dispatching vans full of orphans to her house. Haregewoin's name spread across the city as a woman willing to house the children left homeless by the monstrous new disease spreading across the country. There is No Me Without You is being published in 15 languages and has been optioned by Dreamworks.

Greene and her husband, Don Samuel, live in Atlanta with their seven children, two of whom were adopted as older children from Ethiopia.