Michelle Kicherer is a fiction writer, manuscript consultant, and a book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and Willamette Week.

She is the author of the novella Sexy Life, Hello, which Kirkus Reviews gave a “Get It” recommendation and called “An eye-opening satire that is as cheeky as it is unsparing.”

Her writing has been published in The Masters Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review, The Sierra Nevada Review, 8142 Review, 580 Split, The Deli, The Bay Bridged, Forbes, SF Station, The Cutaway, Into The Void, Portland Monthly and many others.

Michelle holds an MFA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College and is a writing instructor for Literary Arts, Litquake, Portland Community College, and Writing Workshops. She loves to dissect stories and is always encouraging her students to get a little weirder. Michelle offers limited writing coach slots each year with a focus on developmental editing. She occasionally co-writes a book, has ghostwritten several memoirs and nonfiction books, and just completed a novel. She is at work on her third book.

Michelle is the producer and host of The Banana Pitch Variety Show and radio show, a recorded variety show featuring interviews and performances by writers, musicians, comedians and “others.”

She founded the nonprofit publishing house Banana Pitch Press in 2024, which opened for novella and “memoirella” submissions in January 2025.

Read her unofficial bio here.