Michelle Porter

Assistant Professor, Creative Writing, Department of English, Memorial University

Ph.D. in Geography, Memorial University

mep464@mun.ca

Originally from Alberta, Michelle Porter graduated from Memorial University with a Ph.D. in geography in 2016. During the course of her Ph.D., she focused upon stories of change, identity, and resilience in two Newfoundland communities. Michelle is now a Postdoctoral Fellow with the School of Science and Environment at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University. In this position she is excited to be working on two research projects: one involving the quantification of rural housing and homelessness in the Western region of Newfoundland and the other examining rural entrepreneurship. Previously, she was the Aboriginal Postdoctoral Fellow with the University of Guelph. During her time at Guelph, Michelle focused on an arts-based research project about Métis home and land relationships with the goal of better understanding critical geographies of home and the decolonization of notions of home. At the centre of all her research and academic work is a strong writing practice. She has developed an expertise in creative writing and writing as a research method. Her next book Scratching River will be published by Wilfrid Laurier. Her first book of poetry, Inquiries, was published in 2019 and a book of creative nonfiction about my Métis grandfather Robert Goulet, Approaching Fire, was published in 2020. 

Research Engagement

Dissertation