Ritzenthaler Publishes ‘The Ribboncutters’ and ‘A Good Place Gone’

Melanie Ritzenthaler

By Regina Yoong

Ohio University graduate student Melanie Ritzenthaler published two of her stories—”The Ribboncutters” in the fall 2019 issue of West Branch and “A Good Place Gone” in the triple issue (winter, spring, summer 2019) of Cimarron Review.

“The two stories are both part of a collection I’m working on that’s set in Lake Charles, a city in southwest Louisiana. It’s the area where I completed my MFA. ‘The Ribboncutters’ and ‘A Good Place Gone’ are both stories about young women, loneliness, and a desire for belonging,” she says.

Ritzenthaler is a doctoral student in fiction in the English Department. Her most recent creative work, “To Wish It Better Than It Actually Was” can be read in the Crab Orchard Review’s “Food” issue.