Melinda Giordano is a native of Los Angeles, California. Her artwork has appeared in magazines such as Pearl, Amelia, new renaissance, The Altadena Review, Stone Country, The Bellowing Ark, and Cactus Heart Press. She has always used either pen and ink, or graphite – even pastel – to capture the play of dark and light, of pattern and shape.

Melinda values the architectural properties of the small things – plants and shells: subjects as vast and complex as any cityscape or countryside. These are her favorite subjects, and she enjoys emphasizing their architectural properties – how each of them have the makings of a small building. They are the loveliest of blueprints – and she tries to treat them with subtlety and delicacy.

A crop of this drawing is located on this issue’s non-fiction page.