About Melody Lavrakas

Melody Lavrakas was raised in the San Gabriel Valley in California where she attended California Polytechnic University, Pomona, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business. It was through the patience of her freshmen composition teacher, she learned how to use commas, punctuation, and to write. She loves symphonic music and played flute for many years. In her late teens she owned her own horse, a sixteen-hand bay with silver mane. Melody married John Lavrakas in 1979. They have three children and have lived in Maryland, California, Colorado and Oregon. Together they traveled Europe, enjoying music in Vienna, Prague, London, and Glasgow. Melody has lived in Newport Oregon since 2007 and served on the Newport Symphony Orchestra board for almost ten years and served as an interpreter for the Oregon Coast Aquarium for over fifteen years.

Her first book was for an after-school program on Oceanography for kids, writing and compiling its text. Fifteen years later she wrote Wild Things in My Mountain Garden. With children grown and married, Melody took her love for symphonic music, horses, and travel, and with a little romantic fantasy, has written A Long Journey Home. A Series about fictional women whose lives interact with real places and figures, as they search for their own sense of place and love. Her books reflect her own world travels, the need to help others and her search for the right place. Finding it in Newport with her husband, as they enjoy ocean sciences, music, gardening and writing. She and her husband have been lovingly married for 45 years.