Michelle
Porter
Michelle Porter is a writer and scholar originally from the Métis prairie homeland. She is the descendent of the Goulet family, a long line of Métis storytellers, most of whom told their stories with music. Porter is the author of two books of nonfiction, Approaching Fire and Scratching River, the poetry collection Inquiries, and the novel A Grandmother Begins the Story. Porter lives in St. John’s and teaches creative writing at Memorial University.
Award History
Jury Citation
“Michelle Porter’s A Grandmother Begins the Story blows the doors off the typical family saga. This novel’s five Métis generations intertwine in wild, thrilling patterns, like the music that sustains them. Beautiful and daring, this book carries the weight of history lightly, and is full of surprises and shifts — we move between this world and the afterlife, human and animal characters, in a great imaginative dance. The story’s striking voices resound long after the final page.” — 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Jury (francesca ekwuyasi, Alix Hawley, MG Vassanji)
