Mel Goldberg

Mel Goldberg spent decades teaching literature and writing to high school and college students across California, Illinois, Arizona, and as a Fulbright Exchange Teacher at Stanground College in Cambridgeshire, England. He taught people to read closely, to sit with a line until it opened up, and to trust what a few carefully chosen words could carry.

After meeting professional artist Bev Kephart in Sedona, Arizona, they sold most of what they owned and spent seven years traveling through the United States, Canada, and Mexico in a small motor home - following roads without fixed destinations, writing and painting along the way.

His novel, Catch a Killer, Save the World, was selected as one of the 10 best novels of 2013 by the Ohio Writers’ Association “Great Novel Contest.” In the novel, Jewish detective Aaron Guerevich runs into ethnic opposition from Jews and Muslims when he investigates the murders of two Syrian Muslim store owners.

Mel’s haiku has won awards in the U. S. and Japan. In 2018, he won the grand prize in the Setouchi Matsuyama haiku contest, in Matsuyama, Japan.

Also in 2018, he won second place in the Johnny Baranski Memorial Haiku Contest,.

pushcart vendor

        scent of oranges

        in his call

About his haiku, judge Paul Miller said the following:

       

This haiku operates on several sensory levels: the sight of the vendor, the sound of his call, and a scent that is evoked from memory. All this comes together in a sharp moment with the reader at its center. Our senses ground this haiku, so even though the vendor is mentioned only with a single word, we can conjure a full scene. I easily imagine the heat and dust (you may imagine differently) of Los Angeles where I born. I can practically taste the air. This is what haiku do best: they evoke so much with so little.

Mel now lives in Ajijic, a village in Jalisco, Mexico, where the pace of life still allows a person to notice small things.

His stories and poems have appeared in print and online publications in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Mexico.