Melissa Barrow is a writer and mixed-media artist. She has been journaling (Anais-Nin-style) and writing poetry since age 7. She was a DJ and music reviewer at KALX 90.7 FM Berkeley from 1996-2012. Her essays, music reviews, collages, and photographs have appeared in various obscure underground ‘zines since the 1980’s. The daughter of innovative, mixed-media art photographer Thomas Barrow, she was surrounded by art and artists all her life, which gave her an appreciation of all forms of media. Her exposure - at age 15 - to the early ‘80’s Tempe/Phoenix punk scene, taught her to question everything and think outside the box, and she has avidly explored the many streams of counter-culture art ever since. Melissa has also spent 25 years devoted to natural healing and environmentalism. She is especially interested in the intersection between art and ecology. She holds a BA in English Literature with an unofficial minor in Photography from ASU, and a Masters in Sustainable Enterprise from Dominican University of California. After 18 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, she returned to the desert 2 ½ years ago. She has fallen in love with Tucson and is honored to work for local nonprofit Native Seeds/SEARCH.