Photo by Luke Johnson. Sepia photo with women in a plaid sundress stands at a podium reading from her work. There is a stage behind her that is bordered by stars.
Get to Know Melissa
Melissa Michal is of Seneca, Welsh, and English decent. She is a fiction writer, essayist, photographer, and coach and consultant. She has been grateful to read at the National American Indian Museum in DC and Amerind Museum in Dragoon. Melissa has work appearing in The Florida Review, Yellow Medicine Review, and the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program’s Narrative Witnessing project. She completed a short story collection, Living Along the Borderlines, out with Feminist Press which was also a finalist for the Louise Meriwether first book prize. Her first novel, Along the Hills, and her non-fiction lyric essay collection, Broken Blood, are finished. She is currently working on a dystopian novel.
She has her MFA from Chatham University, MA from The Pennsylvania State University, and her PhD in literature from Arizona State University where she focused on education, trauma, and representation of Indigenous histories and literatures in curriculum. Melissa also consults with organizations and universities to develop more diverse and inclusive practices including curriculum development, hiring practices, and DEIB training. Her critical article, "There Is No Question of American Indian Genocide" considers the implications of systems which erase people of difference. Her monograph is working through how we better educational institutions to not simply check a "diversity" box, but to fully engage all programming with issues of difference. She desires to use the Good Mind to restructure education through knowledge and relationship building--ways which offer stronger and safer spaces for students of difference. To find out more about her consulting services for students and organizations, please click here.
To bring Melissa to your organization as an author or scholar the fees are as follows: $5000 for a university or for-profit business for a reading or lecture within driving distance; $7500 if travel is required. Contact her at the below form to set up a date. Sliding scales available for non-profits, libraries, and BIPOC owned businesses.
She has her MFA from Chatham University, MA from The Pennsylvania State University, and her PhD in literature from Arizona State University where she focused on education, trauma, and representation of Indigenous histories and literatures in curriculum. Melissa also consults with organizations and universities to develop more diverse and inclusive practices including curriculum development, hiring practices, and DEIB training. Her critical article, "There Is No Question of American Indian Genocide" considers the implications of systems which erase people of difference. Her monograph is working through how we better educational institutions to not simply check a "diversity" box, but to fully engage all programming with issues of difference. She desires to use the Good Mind to restructure education through knowledge and relationship building--ways which offer stronger and safer spaces for students of difference. To find out more about her consulting services for students and organizations, please click here.
To bring Melissa to your organization as an author or scholar the fees are as follows: $5000 for a university or for-profit business for a reading or lecture within driving distance; $7500 if travel is required. Contact her at the below form to set up a date. Sliding scales available for non-profits, libraries, and BIPOC owned businesses.
|
Melissa Michal has been a writer since her first story at age five. She made her nephew a king on his birthday. Since then, her writing has sought to unsilence, to reveal, and to ignite power so that others will know about pain and resilience--and so that others will seek out truths about many different peoples.
|
|
Latest reviews:
"The familial relationships here are strong and tender, no matter who they bond: long-lost siblings, grandparents and grandchildren, spouses and friends, the dead and the living. Melissa Michal has created potent stories around all of them, with disturbing and beautiful elements all at once. All of the characters, even in the shortest stories, are full of depth and nuance, making this one of the more underrated short story collections of the year." Sarah Nielson, Literary Hub “The stories in Living on the Borderlines cross bloodlines, heart lines, and cultural lines, powerfully charting what it is to be human in a world that works to divide us.” —Susan Power, author of Sacred Wilderness
“Living on the Borderlines is a beautiful window into understanding Indigenous worldviews. Indigenous cultures think primarily in terms of space, and Western Europeans think in terms of time. Yet, Indigenous stories sharing original wisdom is how the first peoples of this land survived despite countless attempts to eradicate our race, culture, and way of life. This book is an unapologetic contemporary perspective of the truth of healing through Indigenous storytelling.” —Sarah Eagle Heart, CEO of Native Americans in Philanthropy
"Living on the Borderlines is a hauntingly beautiful collection of stories of contemporary women and girls who live in the spaces between the reservations and traditional Indigenous territories and rural and urban communities stretching across western New York to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and beyond, to the island of Haida Gwaii off the coast of British Columbia. Despite the family choices, personal losses, intergenerational and historical traumas that separate Melissa Michal's characters across time and space, both they and their stories are woven together by their ancestral bloodlines, spirits and voices that dance and dream, spelunk and sing them from the past, through the present and into a resurgent future. Michal's debut is a stunning achievement." --Nikki Dragone
|
Image of book cover with five dancing women and dancing young girl along the bottom. Along the top, in the sky area, are ancestors playing music. Cover art by Natasha Smoke Santiago. Please check out her webpage and help to support her work: http://storytellershouse.com/
|
Melissa wants others to know their gifts and to know that they are important, too, no matter their differences or backgrounds.
Photo by Christina Hernandez. Image of a woman with her back to the camera standing with hands reaching out to the side. She is in the middle of a street in Old Town Puerto Rico surrounded by multi-colored buildings.
A story should always be about telling the truth. About the multiple stories from multiple peoples that exist within that truth. I’m not so sure the truth sets you free when you are American Indian. Not free in the sense of free from stereotypes, racism, others doubts in your credibility, people never really hearing you when you talk about your community. Free in the sense that you never gave in morally or ethically to tell these truths. But still, non-Native and even some Native folks are truly scared of that truth. So unwilling to see because it might mean they play a part in the awfulness that is still colonization. (From "Witnessing")
All photos on this site are the property of Melissa Michal and may not be used in any way without permission. Most photos are Michal's own photography, or photos by friends.