A grifter who has made it her practice to rip off naive writers with a phony literary agency has been snagged, after a bewlidering array of international scores:
In a burst of activity, Melanie Mills–long known to be a scam literary agent–has promoted a nonexistent writers' conference in South Carolina, which she then cancelled without sending anyone their promised refunds on memberships they'd bought; faked her own death, masquerading as her own assistant and possibly as her own daughter as well; shut down her operation in North Myrtle Beach SC, and decamped to Canada; while operating under the name "Elizabeth von Hullessem", fraudulently promoted and sold memberships in a nonexistent literary conference in Banff (trading on the reputation of the prestigious Banff-Calgary Wordfest), plus an equally nonexistent charity concert in Banff to benefit autism; and vanished from Banff with tens of thousands of dollars in convention fees.
