“In travel I discover new versions of myself; in writing about it, those selves are interweaved.”

Michelle Alipao Chikaonda (she/her/hers) is a nonfiction writer from Blantyre, Malawi, currently living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition to being a 2019 resident at The Seventh Wave’s Rhinebeck Residency, she is a Voices of Our Nations [VONA] Workshop fellow, a Tin House Summer Workshop alumna, and has presented at several Association of Writing and Writing Programs [AWP] conferences. She teaches regularly with Blue Stoop, a writing hub for the Philadelphia literary community, and has served as a teaching assistant, student mentor and workshop instructor at Mighty Writers, a Philadelphia nonprofit teaching writing and critical thinking to children and teens. A contributing editor for nonfiction at Electric Literature, Michelle is also currently published at Al Jazeera, The Globe and Mail, Catapult, the Broad Street Review, Business Insider, and Africa is A Country, among others.