Dr. Michele Tracy Berger is a professor, an award-winning writer, a creativity coach and a pug-lover. Her main love is writing speculative fiction, though she also is known to write poetry and creative nonfiction, too.
Her origin story
At the age of six, Michele’s mother turned a walk-in closet into creative space just for her daughter. That closet became a portal and gateway to self-expression. Michele pretended that Will Robinson, a character on the television show Lost in Space was her brother and that she fought alongside Lindsay Wagner who played The Bionic Woman. And, she went on many other adventures. From that age on, Michele never doubted the power of the imagination.
Her publications
Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Apex Magazine, SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire, Concrete Dreams: Witches, Warriors and Wise Women, Afromyth: A Fantasy Collection Volume 2, Stories We Tell After Midnight #2, Nevermore; UnCommon Origins: A Collection of Gods, Monsters, Nature and Science, Flying South: A Literary Journal; 100 Word Story; Thing Magazine; Blood and Bourbon, and FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.
Her nonfiction writing and poetry have appeared in The Chapel Hill News, The Wild Word Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, Oracle: Fine Arts Review, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, The Feminist Wire, Ms. Magazine, Carolina Woman Magazine, Western North Carolina Woman, A Letter to My Mom (Crown Press), Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler (Twelfth Planet Press) and various zines.
She is the 2019 winner of the Carl Brandon Kindred Award from the Carl Brandon Society for her story “Doll Seed” published in FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.
In 2020, her science fiction novella, “Reenu-You” about a mysterious virus transmitted through a hair care product billed as a natural hair relaxer, was published by Falstaff Books. Much of her work explores psychological horror, especially through issues of race and gender.
She runs an award-winning blog called ‘The Practice of Creativity’ and was a recent columnist for The Chatham County Line.
Her literary service
Michele has been a judge for a variety of fellowships and book prizes awarded through Carolina Wren Press, Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, and the North Carolina Writers’ Network (NCWN).
She is immediate past President of the board of the North Carolina Writers’ Network (NCWN) and immediate past President of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.
A selection of podcasts and interviews
Convincing Creatives with Evan Kidd
Stimulating interview about writing habits, empowering creatives mindset and power of neutral and positive self talk inspirations, taming inner critics.
NIGHTLIGHT: A Horror Fiction Podcast, Episode 39
Discussing my short story, “Etta, Zora and The First Serpent” and the writer Zora Neale Hurston who appears in the story.
Listen to the story read here.
In conversation with D.G. Martin host of NC Bookwatch discussing my sci-fi novella, Reenu-You. What if a trip to the salon could kill you?
Every Tongue Got to Confess: Dr. Michelle Berger about Afrofuturism and the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival.
Enjoyed this interview to discuss my understanding of Afrofuturism
Dolly Sickles Interviews me in a special issue of the North Carolina Literary Review on ‘writers who teach’. This interview won the 2022 Randall Kenan Prize from the North Carolina Literary Review.