MEL HARTMAN

ABOUT ME

 

As soon as she learned how to put words on paper, Mel Hartman immediately started to scribble down everything, which led to her writing a large number of journals. When she was approximately 10 years old, she started writing plays. Children's books, romantic novels and poems followed, but during puberty, it became clear the genres she loved most were fiction: horror, thrillers, SF and fantasy.
Early one morning she woke up with the idea for ´Fantasy Hunters'. She jumped right out of bed and wrote for the entire morning. She was dragged into the world she created and felt more like a typist than a writer, since the story seemed to write itself.
Dreams and sleep have fascinated Mel since childhood. Ever since she was very young, she has written down her dreams and nightmares, and analysed them. During her psychology studies, her essays were always about dreams. As an intern she learned everything about sleep and dreams in the centre for sleep- and waking-disorders in Antwerp, Belgium. Immediately after her studies, she stayed working in that sleep centre and discovered the scientific side of sleep as a sleep analyst (diagnosis and treatment) and scientific researcher. Later, she got an offer to work in the sleep centre in The Hague, The Netherlands. Scientific articles in 'Sleep Medicine' where published under her name: Melissa Vandeputte. Of course, that scientific part is also present in her books about the Fantasy Hunters, as well as her fascination for psychology, the paranormal, ufology and myths from several cultures.
Mel Hartman was born in 1972 in Ostend, Belgium, where she still lives with her husband, dog Kiwi and chickens Molly, Miss Daisy and Camilla, in a little farmhouse. She prefers to spend her spare time painting, doing yoga, reading, watching films, travelling and walking with Kiwi.