FICTION

Michelle writes about poverty, wealth, war, death, birth, parenthood, childhood, and everything in between. She holds a B.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia College Chicago where she was a student of the Story Workshop Method and the only undergraduate selected to participate in the Master’s Program Cooperative with Bath Spa University (UK)—editing an anthology of fiction and attending MFA classes in Bath. She is the editor-in-chief at House of Arcanum.

Her work is, or will be, included in:

The Forge Literary Magazine

Fractured Literature

Lunch Ticket

Riddle Fence Press

The Maudlin House

Wrath-Bearing Tree

Roi Fainéant Press

Feminine Collective

Broken Antler Magazine

Umbrella Factory Magazine

Marrow Magazine

Ginosko Literary Journal

Bulb Culture Collective

The Big Ugly Review

Hair Trigger Magazine

Metaworker Literary Magazine

Fine Lines Literary Journal

I laid my bags in my old bedroom, in the doorway, actually because the room itself was full of boxes, trash and dying plants. "What's going on with you?" I asked.

She looked up from filing her nails. She was wearing an old, once white bathrobe barely closed over her skin and fat. Her hair was slick and flat with grease, her face puffy and lined with the creases of sleep. The apartment smelled of death, and she herself permeated unwashed crevices and defeat. "I'm not doing too good, kiddo," she said and looked guilty.

-Heavy or Prolonged Bleeding, Ginsosko Literary Journal, 2024

Visit the portfolio to read.

Recognition:

Gold Circle Award for Fiction, Columbia University Scholastic Press Association

Nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize (awaiting results)

Honorable Mention, Riddle Fence Annual Fiction Contest

Finalist, Fractured Literature 2024 Open

Finalist, 2024 Wright Prize

Editing credits:

Editor in Chief, House of Arcanum, (nominated for CLMP Firecracker Award—awaiting results)

Open to Interpretation, a print anthology of fiction