Melody Chavis
 
    
 For more than 20 years Melody has worked on California's Death Row, as a private investigator working on appeals for the condemned. This has led her to a search for the roots of violence, and to writing her first book, Altars In The Street (Bell Tower, 1997).

In early 2002, she traveled to Afghanistan, where she used her investigative skills to research the biography, MEENA, The Martyred Founder of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, (St. Martin's Press, 2003). She did the book as a benefit for RAWA's medical and educational work for women and chilren.

While continuing her support for the human rights of Afghan women, she has written essays on diverse topics, and she is working on another book, a memoir about her private eye career.

She is a Buddhist, a peace activist, and a grandmother.

  
 

MEENA: Heroine of Afghanistan (St. Martin's Press, 2003).  
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ALTARS IN THE STREET: A Memoir (Bell Tower/Harmony Books 1997; paperback, 1998; Random House print-on-demand, 2000).  
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