Swollen Appetite

"Legend had it that if you lived in San Francisco for too long, you'd lose your mind. I lived there from 1992 until 1997, and the legend came true. I found the right place at the right time to fall apart."

SWOLLEN APPETITE is a memoir that spans the five years I spent as a young artist on the cusp of becoming in the fertile and gorgeously messed-up alt-music and comedy scenes of San Francisco. The perspective stays in the 90s, tucked between the dirty sheets of a burgeoning 90s musician who bounces out of bed at noon to prepare for her night shift at the music venue or comedy club.

There is a brief stint in the middle of the Odyssey where a friend and I tried to make a go of it in Nashville. I had connections in the music scene and got a job at the Blue Bird Café, but it ended after only three months. We dropped our first payment for the car we drove in the mailbox as we hightailed it back to San Francisco.

I get sober towards the end of the story. I have shared my recovery story in short form for decades. To flesh out that exceptional time allows me to pay tribute to my struggle and to shine a light on the dim path so many of us travel.

A writer's love affair with a fascinating city and a frenzied, powerful tour of hedonism and self-destruction. -Kirkus Review

As a songwriter, Sandra Austin Mello has created, recorded, performed, toured and published original music, in the band, The Bellyachers. It has been featured in television and film. She published her first novel, WHAT YOU CARRY in 2018. An excerpt from the memoir was published March 2024 in The Perch - Yale School of Medicine creative arts journal. Mello lives in Oakland, CA, with her musician husband and obstinate cat.