Melanie Pappadis Faranello • Interviews

Interview by Benjamin Woodard
**A CONVERSATION WITH MELANIE PAPPADIS FARANELLO, AUTHOR OF EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMETHING (University of Georgia Press)**

Melanie Pappadis Faranello’s debut story collection, Everybody Needs Something, winner of the 2025 Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, is filled with stories of searching. Sometimes, couples are trying to escape reality—either by moving to a new country or attending a presentation at a school auditorium. Sometimes, people are looking for companionship by inviting strangers to Thanksgiving dinner, or children are trying to navigate the loss of a parent to dementia. In these fourteen tales, small acts lead to big realizations, and at their center is Faranello’s steady narrative hand, guiding the reader with sharp prose.

Faranello is the creator of Poetry on the Streets, a Hartford, CT-based organization that encourages communities to share their stories through poetry, much of which is then displayed in public spaces. She is also the founder of Sonder, a literary reading series in Hartford. Having known Melanie for several years, it was a pleasure to sit down recently to discuss her new book.

Benjamin Woodard: I want to start with the collection’s title. There’s a story titled “Everybody Needs Something,” but I’m interested in learning why you opted to use this same title for the collection itself.

Melanie Pappadis Faranello: I was considering three different stories to use for the collection’s title, and I asked my friend which she liked best and she chose “Everybody Needs Something.” It felt right, so I went with it. I think it reflects some themes that appear through the book—the longing for something that often feels out of reach, the myth of if only…then…. The father in that title story is grappling with how to be a father with limited custody for his teenage son and imagines a “Rent-a-Relative” service because he thinks his son might be better off with a stand-in.

Many of the characters are searching for something that might not necessarily be what they really need because what they need is usually something deeper, more universal, like some kind of renewed relationship with themselves or connection with their partner, with their child, or a parent. Like the man on the book’s cover—from the story “My Father, My King”—carrying this giant, inflatable unicorn, which is how he describes the feeling he has at the end when he hears his child laugh, like he has won a carnival prize. Or the couple in “A Nice Place to Retire,” looking to start a new retired life across the world, but really, they need to find their way back to one another.

Benjamin: Would you say this is the “over story” versus the “under story”? What they want is the over story, or the action, and what they need is the under story that’s happening more subtly beneath the surface?

Melanie: Yes. I think “under stories” are characters who are grappling with things like rediscovering themselves and one another, dealing with life changes—grief, longing—sometimes not knowing exactly what it is they need, but needing what most people need—like human connection, to feel seen and heard and loved.

Benjamin: There are stories in the book from over a decade ago, and there are also more recent pieces. Was there any difficulty in collecting work that spans decades? I’m also wondering if you see different versions of yourself when comparing your older stories to newer pieces?

Melanie: Definitely. It’s interesting having written these stories over so many years and phases of life. I wrote some when I was single, married, a new mom, and some I wrote more recently. They span different phases of life and identities, not just as an individual, but also as a writer. One thing I struggled with when including some of the older stories was not being able to rewrite them from where I am now as a writer. I had to accept that this collection represents a range rather than a specific moment in time. I realized that we keep evolving with time, which means we could potentially keep revising, but part of the process is to let the work go.

Benjamin: I always tell people that, as a short story writer, I can look at my chronological output and see it as an autobiography that only makes sense to me. Right? Every story reminds you of what you were doing at that time, your age, what mattered in your life.

Melanie: It’s interesting, too, that over the course of so many years there are similar themes that keep coming up. I think we are all ultimately obsessed with one or two things in life that we keep returning to. So even though my writing or style may have changed a bit, and I’m moving through different life experiences, I find myself returning to those same themes.

Benjamin: How do you know when a story is done? You have some very short flash pieces in this collection, yet you also have a triptych of longer stories featuring the same protagonist, Will. Does the story dictate length to you before you start writing or as you’re writing?

Melanie: For me, it’s story by story. The individual story dictates the length. I never know what the story is going to be about before I start writing, but when I start, I follow the characters until they come to some kind of reflection or realization or change. Until it feels like whatever has been set in motion is resolved, at least for that moment in time. Some pieces, like the flash pieces, have a different energy. They’re in and out. And then the triptych stories actually became a novel, and the character, Will, had a much longer arc.

Benjamin: So are those three stories three chapters in the novel?

Melanie: Not exactly, but parts of those three stories became scenes in a novel I wrote years later, called In Other Kinds of Weather, about a middle-aged man who veers off course in effort to save his family from financial ruin while all kinds of trouble brews behind closed doors in suburbia. When I wrote the novel, the character’s name changed to Frank. But it’s the same guy, Will, from those three stories.

Benjamin: Sticking to specific stories in the book, I was wondering if you could talk about the story “The Auditorium,” which bounces between two people’s points of view as they experience the same event in this school auditorium. When drafting, did you know you wanted to write a story that has this husband and wife jumping back and forth in real time, or did you start with one perspective and then insert the other as you continued drafting?

Melanie: I didn’t set out thinking I wanted to intentionally write from two points of view. But the switch felt important in that piece because the husband and wife are sharing a difficult moment in their lives: their daughter is ill in the hospital, and they’re trying to temporarily set this aside while at an elementary school presentation on wildlife for their wedding anniversary. As I was writing, it didn’t feel like just one person’s story. They were together, experiencing the same moment, but they were so separate, and I wanted to show that distance within their two perspectives. The tension in the story, for me, was how, despite being together in this confined space of the auditorium, they were so far apart. So it made sense to then go into each of their points of view to illustrate that separation.

Benjamin: “Marionette” is another story employing multiple POVs, but “Marionette” also has this additional technique where you include excerpts from a novel that your character is reading. You elegantly jump between POVs, these book excerpts, and tense switches—as some of the story is in present tense while some is in past. How did that story come together?

Melanie: This is one of the older stories, and I think it’s an example of feeling freer as a writer to experiment and explore. Less concerned with narrative rules. I wrote this one more intuitively. The boy in “Marionette” is a dreamer, lost in his own daydreams, and the mother is lost in the novel she’s reading, so that allowed me to play with weaving different stories together. It was fun to see how each strand reflected the others by creating stories within stories.

Benjamin: Segueing, but keeping this idea of stories within stories in mind—you’ve run Poetry on the Streets for almost a decade. In running that sort of program and encountering people who are oftentimes approaching poetry for the first time, I’m curious if their stories and words influence you or the way you work with your own writing?

Melanie: That’s a good question. I’ve always had a desire to integrate Poetry on the Streets with my writing life. I wouldn’t say it influences my writing, but I think the themes and what draws me to this project are similar: the belief in stories as a way to connect and understand human experiences. I’m obsessed with hearing people’s stories, and I love inspiring creative self-expression and bringing people’s words into public spaces. When a stranger shares a story or writes a poem, they offer a glimpse into their lives. Finding unexpected moments of connection with strangers who we might have otherwise passed by is a powerful human experience. What I’m drawn to investigate in fiction are the same things that make me interested in Poetry on the Streets. The stories in the book capture moments in characters’ lives before they go on their way, similarly to Poetry on the Streets. I hope that readers will find some resonance with the characters’ emotional experiences even if they’re different from the character.

Benjamin: Beyond Poetry on the Streets, are you involved in other art or writing projects?

Melanie: Yes, the latest project that I’m launching with Poetry on the Streets is called “The Community Poem Project.” It invites everyday people across the country to add a line to a collaborative poem. Bookmarks with QR codes, pop-up exhibits with notecards, and a QR form on the website enable people to engage and add their words. Some of the prompts are: What does connection mean to you?; What do you need?; What do you love?; I hope…; I miss…; I carry…. When the poem grows large enough, it will be transformed into a physical exhibit displayed in a public space for others to see and add to. The poem is growing, and it’s really beautiful to read what people have sent in so far—a good reminder of how we are connected through our humanity.

Sonder Reading Series is another project I recently launched in Hartford, CT, to foster literary community. It’s happening on the fourth Friday of the month, bringing together established and emerging writers across genres, and hopefully creating a space in Hartford that writers want to stop on their book tours.

Benjamin: Lastly, at this year’s AWP conference, you were part of a panel of debut authors over the age of 50. Any advice for writers out there who might be creeping up to that age, or who are past that age and wondering if it’s too late?

Melanie: It’s not too late. I think it’s a good goal is to move away from age as a defining factor in life and society. There are so many writers publishing at a later age, and I think a lot is gained by having lived life experiences. Being a writer is about committing to the work, sitting down, and putting words on the page. Publishing, and the validation from the publishing industry, is something out of your control. To have a book in the world is wonderful, but it’s taken me a long time. I’ve gone through a lot of rejection along the way, and with this has come perspective.

Writing is perseverance and commitment, regardless of the external validation that comes from the publishing world. Also, it feels grounding to be at something over the long haul because it becomes part of who you are regardless of external measures of success or failure. The best advice I got when I was twenty was to take the wins and losses with the same enthusiasm. In other words, it’s about the work. Just keep writing, because it will happen if you just keep going.

Melanie Pappadis Faranello has authored numerous stories and essays that have appeared in various publications, including Swamp Pink, Electric Literature, StoryQuarterly, Hippocampus, Vol 1. Brooklyn, HuffPost Personal, Blackbird, StorySouth, and elsewhere. Her work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won Key West Literary Seminars’ Emerging Writers Award for Novel-in-Progress. She was a 2024 Writer-in-Residence at Monson Arts and holds her M.F.A. from The New School. She is also the founder of Poetry on the Streets. Originally from Chicago, she lives with her family in West Hartford, CT, where she is a teaching artist and at work on a novel. Read more at www.melaniefaranello.com and find her on Instagram and Facebook.

Benjamin Woodard’s fiction has appeared in numerous journals, including Joyland, Pithead Chapel, HAD, and SmokeLong Quarterly, as well as in the 2019 and 2021 editions of Best Microfiction. His recent criticism can be found in Publishers Weekly, Words Without Borders, and On the Seawall, where he is a contributing editor. Learn more at benjaminjwoodard.com.