Michele Christle writes about culture, ecology, and place. Her work has been published in Eater, Down East, Insider, The Kenyon Review, and other publications. She served in the Peace Corps in Cameroon, received an MFA in Creative Writing from UMass Amherst, and has worked extensively in nonprofit storytelling and communications. Michele is a producer and facilitator for StoryCorps’ One Small Step program through WERU Community Radio and a founding member of Torchlight Media, a community-based multimedia studio. In 2024, Michele was awarded a Bodwell Fellowship and a residency at Hewnoaks. She lives in midcoast Maine and is currently working on a book and an experimental documentary (with filmmaker Eli Kao) about elvers/glass eels.
Christle is pronounced, “crystal.”
visit the elversphere
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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 fascinating 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, and 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.
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