Michelle Heidenrich Barnes
Children's Poet, Anthologist, and Teacher
Growing up, I was obsessed with the performing arts—theater, dance, music—and how they could be used to tell stories and communicate a shared human experience. These days I am an artist of the written word, but I still strive to share the human experience in eye-opening ways. My creative challenge is to paint moments, coaxing out the natural musicality and rhythm of words as they bounce around within the sphere of my imagination.
Selected as a 2020 finalist for the position of Poet Laureate for Alachua County, Florida, my poetry appears in magazines, journals, and anthologies published by National Geographic, DK, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Charlesbridge, Pomelo Books, and others. I have also edited my own collections of poetry: The Best of Today's Little Ditty 2014-2015, 2016, and 2017-2018. My greeting card verse has been published widely in the US and UK by publishers such as Andrews McMeel Publishing, Blue Mountain
Arts, Design Design Inc, Laura Leiden Calligraphy,
Papyrus, and Watermark Publishing.
I have been interviewed or otherwise featured at the following blogs:
Heidi Mordhorst's My Juicy Little Universe (2019)
Nerdy Book Club, in an article by S. Vardell and J. Wong (2018)
No Water River, in Renée M. LaTulippe's poetry video library (2018)
Michelle Kogan (2018)
Jone Rush MacCulloch's Check It Out (2017)
Laura Purdie Salas's Writing the World for Kids (2017)
Irene Latham's Live Your Poem (2016)
Penny Parker Klostermann's A Penny and Her Jots (2015)
Proud member of the Society of Children's Writers and Book Illustrators.
Contact me via email:
michelle@michellehbarnes.com
Or find me on social media:
