Melissa Michal is a writer dedicated to uncovering and nurturing the unique voices of her students. Her own work navigates the intersections of fiction and essay, often exploring themes of education and the representation of Indigenous histories and literatures. Through compelling prose and visual artistry, she delves into the complex relationships between past and present, identity and belonging. Her writing is celebrated for its depth, originality, and its capacity to illuminate intricate literary and cultural landscapes.
For the loosely connected Seneca community members living in Upstate New York, intergenerational memory slips into everyday life: a teenager struggles to understand her grandmother's silences, a family seeks to reconnect with a lost sibling, and a young woman searches for a cave that's called to her family for generations. With these stories, debut writer Melissa Michal weaves together an understated and contemplative collection exploring what it means to be Native.