The Unofficial Bio

Michelle is a weirdo. She loves laughing more than any other emotion (is laughter an emotion?). She’s “leaning in” to the whole Dog Lady thing and isn’t ashamed. She hates that thing where you swallow food wrong and start coughing uncontrollably and everyone’s like, Are you okay??? And you’re just like yes, shut the fuck up and stop watching. Michelle believes that perfect spelling and/or grammar does not a writer make, and that that’s what (good) copyeditors are for. She thinks that we should start by asking if someone knows about a thing before telling them all about a thing. She welcomes folks from every side of every spectrum into her classroom because hey, this is a learning space, right? Speaking of the classroom, she’s got a motto that goes, “There are no such things as stupid questions, only pretentious instructors.”

Before writing professionally Michelle was a nutritionist in a mental health setting. While nutrition is no longer a “passion” (maybe it never was), mental health topics show up in her work and in how she leads a classroom. As a mostly-former ghostwriter and (current) writing coach specializing in memoir, one thing stands out again and again, unfortunately: in some form or another trauma shows up in most women’s stories. While classes and coaching are not meant to serve as therapy, Michelle is sometimes referred to as a “book therapist.”

The happiest moments in the classroom are when someone has a breakthrough craft moment: figuring out how to structure some part of their story and how to edit their work to best tell whatever story they wanna tell. Amazing feeling.

She’s not sure why bios are supposed to be in third person, and wants you to know that she is the one writing this.