Photo by Angela Gordon
Michelle studied international development and social work at McGill University, and has an MFA from Chatham University in Pittsburgh.
She has been fortunate to live, study or work in Australia, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Israel, Switzerland, and the United States.
Michelle worked as a policy analyst on human rights and labour issues for many years, but recently began making more space for reading and writing. She now works at an independent bookstore and collects far too many books.
She lives in Ottawa on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people with her spouse, three children, two cats and a dog.
Tess has just moved to Montreal from Nova Scotia, and seeks to lose herself by involving herself in the lives of others. She befriends an older man while delivering meals.
Her interest in his past veers into obsession after she furtively goes through his journal. Though fact and fiction are blurred, they reveal a man shaken by political polarization and repression in his Latin-American homeland.
Tess learns about a young, passionate man in the 1970s forced to reconcile his love for a militant young woman and his dedication to his best friend whose family is on the other side of the political divide.
As she delves deeper into the man’s story, she questions her own life choices, emotions and obsessions.
Exploring cultural and personal memory, Almost Visible reflects on what can happen when a lonely person intervenes in another person's life.
Purchase it here.