Michele Christle is a writer whose work focuses on culture, ecology, and place. After serving in the Peace Corps in Cameroon, Michele earned an MFA in Creative Writing from UMass Amherst. Her writing has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Eater, Insider, Down East, and Cultural Survival Quarterly. Michele has 20 years’ experience working in communications, oral history, teaching, and journalism. In recent years, she’s worked with Maine Sea Grant, Maine Audubon, Out in the Open, and as a producer/facilitator for StoryCorps’ One Small Step program through WERU Community Radio. Currently, Michele works with Torchlight Media and Atlantic Black Box’s Walk for Historical and Ecological Recovery. She serves on the Frankfort Dam Committee and the Maine Community Foundation’s Waldo County Committee. The recipient of a Bodwell Fellowship and residencies at Hewnoaks and Shannaghe, Michele is working on a book and documentary (with filmmaker Eli Kao) about eels.
Christle is pronounced “crystal.”
visit the elversphere
〰️
visit the elversphere 〰️
For the past year, facilitating StoryCorps’ One Small Step initiative in “Maine” (for WERU Community Radio) has occupied my days. You can read more about that experience here. This work has led me to have a lot of conversations with people in rural “Maine” around resilience, connection, community, and renegades. These conversations are ongoing—sometimes I share snippets of them here.
In my writing, I’m exploring ecology, culture, and history through abandoned houses, migratory species (eels!), topaz mines, rural midwives, blueberry barrens, granite quarries, waterways. Oh, and Wilhelm Reich.
In my pocket, or on a dusty closet shelf, rather, is a manuscript I wrote about my experience crossing the Pacific Ocean with my father on a 906-foot container ship during typhoon season—35 days. No internet. 4 countries. 23 men. And me. This book is looking for a home. You can get a taste of it here.
For the latest updates on what I’m up to, sign up for my newsletter.
Find me on Instagram
