Michelle Wing

"Body on the Wall" is my first collection. My poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Melancholy Hyperbole, Rain and Thunder, Sinister Wisdom, The Gay & Lesbian Review, and several anthologies.

Five years ago, I created a program called "Changing Hurt to Hope: Writers Speak Out Against Domestic Violence," affiliated with the YWCA Sonoma County. In October 2014, with the help of co-editors Ann Hutchinson and Kate Farrell, we released an anthology of writings from that program, "Cry of the Nightbird: Writers Against Domestic Violence."

Visit my website for more information at www.michellewing.com, and go to www.cryofthenightbird.com for information about the anthology.

Who am I, and why do I write? I write because my head is full. The words and images tumble around, pushing and shoving. Poems and essays create themselves whether I want them to or not. If I didn't write, I think I would have to be committed to an asylum - permanently. But I also write because I find it is my way to have an impact. I try to speak for those who may not be able to, for whatever reason - not by taking their voice, but by sharing my own stories and what I have witnessed, my vulnerabilities, in hopes that these resonate regarding issues of discrimination, social injustice, violence against women, etc. I believe there is power and healing when violence is taken through the crucible of poetry. Something entirely new, and ultimately beautiful, results.

Here's the nitty-gritty stuff - I have a B.A. in English from Montana State University, and an M.A. in Japanese Studies from the University of Washington. After graduate school, I received a fellowship from the Ministry of Education in Japan to study abroad, living in Osaka and Kyoto for three years. I am also a lay-ordained Soto Zen practitioner, and that influences my writing.

From 2002-2013, I worked as the senior staff writer for a community newspaper in the Napa Valley, the Calistoga Tribune. It's the kind of place where they still keep me in the staff box. Currently, I write a monthly literary column, "Off the Page," for a small chain of newspapers in Northern California - Sonoma West Publishers - you can find me www.sonomawest.com.

Raised in Montana, I spent much of my adult life in the urban settings of Seattle, Japan and San Francisco, but I now live in the country in northern California with my partner Sabrina, and a ridiculously large menagerie of animals. I am assisted in all of my creative endeavors by my service dog, Ripley, never more than a few inches away.

Thanks for your support! Read!