Michelle Porter Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Collections

Michelle Porter is a bestselling historical fiction and memoir author who is best known for his debut work “A Grandmother Begins the Story,” which he published in 2023.
She would then kick on from there to pen several other memoirs that would just be as popular as her debut.

Porter comes from a long line of storytellers from the Metis tradition. Most of her ancestors loved to tell stories using music and she just switched gears to become a modern storyteller that makes use of writing to do the same.
In her teenage years, she got a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism, and later on, she got a doctorate in Geography.

Her creative and academic work usually focuses on memory, home, and women’s changing relationships with the land.

Aside from her memoirs, Michelle Porter published “Approaching Fire,” a creative nonfiction work inspired by the life and times of her fiddler grandfather from the Red River.

It was this novel that would make the shortlist of the 2012 Indigenous Voices Award. She made the shortlist for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for “Inquiries,” a book of poetry.

Over the years, she has won many awards for her journalism and poetry and her work has been published in literary magazines and journals all over the United States.

As for how she got into storytelling, Michelle Porter has said that much of it has to do with her mother. Some of her happiest moments when she was a kid were sitting at her mother’s feet, as she told her siblings and herself all manner of stories.
Her mother remains one of the most creative persons she knows as it was always too easy and routine to come up with so many stories that she used to entertain them with every day.

As she grew up, she learned stories about the music that her great-grandfather brought to the family and how her grandmother was born into a musical family.

There were also stories about her grandmother who was born into music since her great-grandfather was also a very musical man. Her mother was also a very important member of the “Red River Echoes,” a family band.
Michelle was witness to the heydays of the band, even if it was on its last legs when it used to make a lot of money and the band members enjoyed traveling all over the United States.
With a mother having a very successful career as a Metis artist, it was not surprising that she decided to become a storyteller just like her.

Michelle Porter currently teaches at Memorial University where she is a professor of Metis Literature and creative writing.
Aside from her writings about the history of her native tribe, she is an active member of the Metis Federation in Manitoba.
She makes her home in Labrador, Newfoundland and St. John’s.

Michelle Porter’s novel “A Grandmother Begins the Story” is an original, enchanting story of the power of family bonds and the unending desire for healing as seen over five generations of Metis women and the bison and land all around them.
The work is penned like a crooked story as we follow the women on quests that could rebuild their futures and remake their worlds.

Carter is a recently separated young mother who is angry, curious, and looking to find the truth about her heritage, which she only recently learned about.

Her mother is a woman named Alie, who is trying to protect her from the pain she suffered from the actions of her mother, even as she makes up for lost time she never spent with her firstborn.

As for Lucie, all she wants is for her estranged granddaughter to assist her to join her predecessors in the afterlife. Meanwhile, Genevieve will do anything to conquer her demons before she is burned up by the fire inside her.
Lastly is Mame who is in the Afterlife and only knows too well that all the stories of the women still on Earth began with her. She needs to sever the bonds that keep them tethered together so that they can at last find their own way.

Michelle Porter’s “Approaching Fire” is a fun and fascinating novel about acceptance and family history. In poetic, lovely prose, the author will take you on a quest of honest conversations and a journey of family heritage.
It is also a candid conversation about why some people have to sometimes hide who they are and sometimes even their name to make their mark in the world and to fit in.

In this work, Michelle searches for the family tree of renowned Metis fiddler Leon Robert Goulet, who also happens to be her great-grandfather.

She shows a great yearning to learn all she can about the man and her longing and sense of loss are expressed in soulful but painful tones.

She writes of when her ancestors were forced to hide their true identities in the face of judgment and prejudice, which remains true for a lot of people now and even then.
Through newspaper clippings, thoughts, mementos, letters, phraseology, images, and poetry, she constructs an exquisitely crafted album.

If you have ever dreamed of learning more about your forefathers or empathized with their struggles to fit in and overcome barriers, you are going to relate to the story.
Inspired by the stories she heard about her father’s musical prowess, she sets out to learn why her great-grandfather left all he cared about and knew.

“Scratching River” by Michelle Porter is a well-placed work about the musing on nature and ancestral writings central to the Metis as told by the author who experienced some of it.

Porter’s elder brother has schizophrenia and autism and spent much of his life in various institutions and group homes. After he became too old for a childhood facility, he was sent to “The Ranch.”
He had suffered a lot of abuse from his carers when he was fourteen and the people in government that should have acted for some reason did not care.

The Porter family used to travel to visit Brendon when allowed and the author writes this part of the family history from her perspective as a fourteen-year-old girl.

Michelle also writes about other elements of Metis life including how Louis Goulet his great-great-grandfather’s brother used to travel by ox and csrt during the 1800s selling goods and hunting bison.

Through Goulet’s writing, we learn about the traditional hunting/farming methods and also about the land. The author also provides information about the dilemmas the hunters faced with treaty rights and the reduced number of bison.
Throughout the work are also descriptions of different locations and river formations as the authors also focus on drought, grasslands, and rivers, which are all impacted by climate change.