About Melina

For forty years, I asked questions for a living.

As a journalist, I interviewed everyone from Oprah Winfrey and Nora Ephron to Deepak Chopra and hundreds of people whose stories stayed with me long afterward. I also wrote for publications including The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Elle, Washingtonian, and AARP.

Later, I spent nearly two decades at National Geographic, where I helped create books, magazines, and franchises for millions of readers.

Then, just before sixty, my own story cracked open. I was raising my kids on my own, and once they left for college, I found myself standing in front of a blank slate. The life I’d spent decades building was changing shape, and for the first time in a very long time, I had to ask a question I had always reserved for other people:

What Comes Next?

That question led me into a year-long investigation—officially into manifestation, and quietly into everything underneath it: reinvention, joy, purpose, self-compassion, and what actually helps us build a meaningful life.

The reporting became a series for AARP.

The series became The Joy Experiment.

The Joy Experiment became a forthcoming book, Apothecary: Micro-Remedies for the Modern Soul.

And somewhere along the way, I went back to school for coaching and became credentialed by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

Today, my work lives at the intersection of journalism, storytelling, coaching, and curiosity.

Through my writing, speaking, coaching, and newsletter, Apothecary, I explore reinvention, creativity, grief, joy, attention, and the surprising ways we continue becoming ourselves throughout our lives.

I live in Bethesda, Maryland, with a cat, a goldendoodle, and an abiding belief that curiosity may be the most underrated wellness practice of all.

Photograph by Nina Hauser