Michelle M. Welch's Biography

Michelle M. Welch was born in Tucson, Arizona, and grew up playing music and filling countless reams of paper with fiction creations. At the age of 9 she wrote her first “book”, which was bound and shelved in her elementary school library. The following year her next work, a fantasy populated by princesses, magical creatures of her own invention, and a talking mouse, won a youth writing award. (She has since completely forgotten what the award was and what happened at the conference she was invited to attend as recognition.)

After studying music--playing viola--for three years, she gave up plans for music as a vocation and instead earned a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a Master’s in Library Science. Still, she continued in music as an avocation and has collected various instruments, including a violin, guitar, and a medieval stringed instrument called a rebec, some of which she actually finds time to play.

The reams of paper have continued to fill up with her scribblings: dozens of short stories and several novel manuscripts. In 1995 she published a short story, “Charon”, in the small-press publication Reader’s Break. Other writings have been published in the newsletters of the Society for Creative Anachronism, an organization that re-creates the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In the SCA, she has written mostly period-style poetry and related research, as well as pursuing such other interests as early music, calligraphy, costuming, and archery.

Currently, she lives in the Phoenix, Arizona area, where she works as a reference librarian, and is hunting for more time to work on new projects.