Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
Copyright 2020 Melanie Spiller. All rights reserved.
Melanie Spiller Biography
Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
Melanie spent her first dozen or so years in the working world as a
materials planner in the semiconductor industry. Although interesting and
challenging, the work wasn’t entirely fulfilling, so she went back to school to
study English Literature (heavy on British Medieval) and Anthropology.
Despite the recession when she graduated, she got a job as an
administrative assistant and copy editor for Ziff-Davis Publishing, in the
laboratories that supported all twelve of Z-D’s computer-related magazines.
In the three years at Ziff-Davis, Melanie built her first database using Paradox on a Mac, to track
contract employees hours and payment schedules. She helped build another, more elaborate, multi-
platform database for the library she organized, which included both software and written materials.
Although the education and experience she brought to Ziff-Davis were for copyediting, ever the
problem-solver and always having difficulty keeping her thoughts to herself, Melanie found her calling
as a substantive editor pretty much from the start. Fortunately, the writers loved it. Also, the laboratory
atmosphere allowed her to become familiar with a truly wild array of software.
From Ziff-Davis, Melanie went to Sybex, Inc., as an Acquisitions and Developmental Editor in the area
of databases and graphic products. In her five years there, she was lucky enough to trip over some
organically excellent authors (like Ken Getz, George Omura, Mary Chipman, Mike Gunderloy, and
Celeste Robinson) and to be able to mold quite a number of talented technical experts to her idea of
excellent writing. Melanie can boast of tens of millions of dollars in sales, dozens of best sellers, and
over 200 books in print in five years. She had the reputation for being merciless, but of producing
every author’s best work. To date, it was the best place she ever worked and the best job she ever
had. She likes to say that all her traits, good, bad, and indifferent, were put to good use there.
Next, Melanie tried her hand as the Documentation Manager for the now defunct dotcom myCFO, a
Jim Clark financial services enterprise. This wild ride of a job exposed her to Web publishing, a
comparatively faceless interaction with text, lots of new software and security issues, and a smattering
of understanding about the world of high finance.
Since May 2001, Melanie has been a freelance editor, working with such clients as
Microsoft (through BrainCore.com, A23 Consulting, and MCWTech), Office Zealot,
Anaplan, and a host of non-technical authors. Subjects edited include highly technical
software-related text and studies about Feldenkrais® Technique, singing technique,
cooking, fiction, poetry, and resumes and cover letters too countless to enumerate. She
happily fills the slow times with writing her own books on Hildegard von Bingen, writing
technique, music history, and cooking, and (gulp) even writing some fiction here and there.
This freelance editing was interrupted for five years as a full-time editor for Microsoft in the SQL Server
group, where she met some great people, edited lots of words 'n' things, and managed to sneak some
work in on some very interesting products, such as Entity Framework, ADO.NET, SQL Azure (cloud
services), PHP, Velocity (cache servers), JDBC, Entity Data Model, SQL Compact, and others. She
also wrote a Writing Workbook based on the concepts and articles in her former blog for technical
writers.
In her real life, Melanie devotes a fair amount of attention to making music. She has
played the flute as long as she can remember, and has more recently added
singing, harp, African and medieval drums, bowed psaltery, hog-nosed psaltery,
mountain dulcimer, jaw harp, recorder, ukulele, and the occasional truly bad piano.
Her focus in music tends to be baroque or earlier, and she is currently trying to
bully her crafty dad into building her a hurdy-gurdy and a hammered dulcimer
because he couldn’t find a decent blueprint for a lyre. She does lots of arranging
(adding or removing a part from an existing piece or changing the key to
accommodate certain voices) and writes a little music herself. Admittedly, most of
it sounds like it was written 700 years ago. She used Noteworthy Composer and
MakeMusic! Finale for such efforts until 2015, when she switched to Avid Sibelius.
Also in her real life, Melanie was foolishly devoted a pair of African Dwarf Frogs named Blotch
(deceased in 2013) and Blaine (deceased in 2010), who were estimated to
have hatched in January of 1995; the friendship between editrix and the
froggy beasts began in June of that same year. Blotch liked lunch and
visitors and was eager to point out spots that were missed during the
monthly algae cleaning. She didn't like loud noises or voices, but that
didn't stop her from wanting to be part of whatever was going on.
Blaine liked to sing (he only had the one note, but he totally owned it),
pointing out Melanie’s flaws and visitors who’d gotten too loud, and
staring contests. These little frogs (they could almost hide under a
quarter) had friends all over the world, mostly authors or musicians.
Melanie’s biggest fear is that she still sounds like a “cat lady” when she talks about the frogs, but she
talks about them anyway. Melanie misses them enormously. (If you know Handel’s “Israel in Egypt,”
you’ll understand their names.)
Melanie usually reads several books at a time, usually one on things to do with music, one on history
of some sort, and one of mystery or just plain fiction. She loves the history of San Francisco and can
lead a tour of some pretty interesting (if obscure) spots. She adores her view from her tiny apartment
in Potrero Hill: both bridges, all of downtown SF, and a huge great expanse of bay and sky. A hundred
years from now, archeologists will wonder why one person took so many photographs of the same
view. She moved to this apartment in 1993, and despite complaining ceaselessly about her “whumpy”
neighbor, it’s apparent that she won’t be pried out of there with a pointy stick. The view is fabulous, and
she sits in a lovely purple chair as much as she can. The rest of the apartment is head-to-toe in books,
quilts, and musical instruments. Navigation in the dark can be a shin-bender.
Melanie enjoys cooking and has a blog featuring single-serving versions of vegan offerings
(http://melaniespiller.blogspot.com/). There are also some recipes on the Completely Off Topic page on this
website that may not be vegan (and are more than a single serving). To avoid the pitfalls of kitchen
time, she is also an avid runner. She also sews her entire wardrobe, quilts, draws, reads, knits,
weaves, sings in several groups, hangs out with some terrific dogs (not her own), and arranges music.
Having written this biography herself, Melanie reports feeling like changing "she" to read “our heroine”
throughout and providing a Dudley Dooright soundtrack, and she is more embarrassed and self-
conscious than usual.