Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Goering.
Hi Michelle, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’ve been living in San Diego since 2004, first in Carmel Valley, but since 2008 in Clairemont’s Bay Ho neighborhood. I grew up on a small wheat farm in Kansas in a Mennonite community. My mother had grown up Old Order Amish, then became a Mennonite and married my father. My life looks quite different from my childhood, though I got my love for words and music there. My father was a schoolteacher as well as a farmer, church and school provided a great education, and I found some amazing mentors along the way. But the differences are huge as well, and since I left the Mennonite community I have continually been missing certain aspects of community life and trying to create community.
I write a lot about my family and the journey from that secure and nurturing but insular Mennonite world to becoming a member of the Baha’i Faith in my early 20s and moving, first to the east coast, then the west coast. I worked for more than a decade in book publishing and marketing at Yale University Press. My husband is a native of southern California, though we met in Kansas, and after we had twin sons in 2001, it seemed like a good idea—or maybe a necessity!—to move closer to family.
I’ve always loved reading and writing and music. In recent years, I became more dedicated to writing, sending work out for inclusion in print and online publications, with some success. I like to write about family, about quirky observations, about my love of the natural world, born of my childhood, and about how our childhoods make us who we are. I published a book called Bird, Watching: Stories, Essays, & Poems, in late 2024. Last year I also started an LLC as I was beginning to do editing work for individuals with stories or projects to share, and for organizations who needed a proofreader or editor on an ad hoc basis.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Life has been full! A cancer diagnosis in 2020, during the same month my mother went into hospice care in Kansas and my sons finished high school at home and had drive-through graduation ceremonies, helped me to reexamine my life and recommit to the arts I had always loved, but which took a back seat during those other career and intensive parenting years. Most of my struggles seem to be of my own making; I tend to wonder if I’m doing what I should be doing, and for a long time I saw music and writing as selfish pursuits. Now I see them as necessary, an antidote to rigid ideology, a path to self-discovery, and a way to understand who we really are and why we are here and what we can offer. I’m eager to contribute what I can toward a peaceful world, and if my writing and music resonates for others, nothing could make me happier.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a writer as well as guitarist and singer. I also have an LLC as a writer and editor for hire. I love to create poetry, short essays and personal pieces, short fiction, and memoir pieces. I believe art can unite and transform the artist and the reader or listener or viewer. I am especially interested in building community through writing that resonates with a diverse audience. San Diego is a great town for writers. San Diego Writers Ink has been a supportive organization for me; I’m currently part of a memoir-writing group led by Judy Reeves, and I read monthly at Dime Stories, an open mic event at The Book Catapult, among other activities.
Baha’is everywhere are engaged in a community-building process with a spiritual basis in individual transformation, coupled with service to humanity. Everyone of every background is invited to participate. I serve as a facilitator for an open women’s group that meets monthly, have a sort of partnership with a friend and neighbor to help neighbors get acquainted with and assist each other, and tutor a weekly study circle open to all.
I’ve always been a singer as well, starting in the Mennonite church of my childhood. During the pandemic I learned to play the guitar, a long-time dream. Now I enjoy gathering neighbors and friends to make music together in a couple of small groups, as well as leading music in my local Baha’i community and at other interfaith and community gatherings. My husband Tim is a musician as well and we love playing music and singing together.
I’m most proud when I feel I’ve had a hand in bringing people together, in being a force for unity.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I’d call myself generally risk-averse! My desire for comfort is something I struggle with. But I guess it’s no small thing to change one’s religion and move across the country a couple of times, so maybe I’ve taken more risks than I think.
I’m becoming more convinced of the necessity of creating community and building havens of hope where all are welcome. So I try to take risks in opening myself to others who are not like me, and to creating spaces with others where people can share what’s important to them. If that includes making art of some kind, all the better!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://MichelleGoering.wixsite.com/writing
- Instagram: @michellegoeringwriter
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Watching-Stories-Essays-Poems/dp/B0DLV4YH7J/ref=sr_1_2?crid=EJU9K9BK8MFY&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ak8Yl2Zedmsfy9qtiVAHBXxi6dn8BKx3GNY_1XEiCasXvRj5faQ1HXZTfY-1xhQdHlyewChWxMstbJP7Imaxie5TMri6EtXusEqHIhI9bY8.EuJH0O4RCQYY1rg77HQbWw-ajO-PzmWhIj8Qgq1s4Qs&dib_tag=se&keywords=michelle+goering&qid=1748991398&sprefix=michelle+goering%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-2
Image Credits
Ostrich pen and ink drawing by Robert Bassett
