Melissa Bank

Melissa Bank (born in 1961 in Philadelphia) is an American author. She has published two books, The Wonder Spot a volume of short stories, and The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, a novel, which have been translated into over thirty languages. Bank was the winner of the 1993 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction. She currently teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. 2Biography Bank was born in Philadelphia. Her father, a neurologist, died of leukemia in his late 50s. Bank attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and has an MFA from Cornell University. Bank's literary influences include Vladimir Nabokov, John Cheever, Billy Collins, and Grace Paley; her favorite nonfiction writer is Janet Malcolm. 3The Girls' Guide to Hunting And Fishing The Girls' Guide to Hunting And Fishing took Bank twelve years to write. Most of that time Bank worked as a copywriter, focusing on the novel in her spare tim