Paper Blogging: home of the online musings of Michelle Geffken.

Essayist, sketchbooker, mom, and teacher.

Also a collector of vintage typewriters.

“I glean stories, images, and resources that restore resilience and inspire wonder, in myself and those whose lives I touch—a gathering of wonder.”

The Beginning of the Rest of the Story

Michelle has homeschooled her six kids, K-college entrance, with a year to complete her youngest's education. Their goal is scholé, the Greek for leisurely learning, including sketching the historic sites of Massachusetts. Wait, the word for ‘school’ comes from the word for ‘leisure’?!

In search of restful, wholehearted learning— including rest from the mele of information online—Michelle is thinking about how to live a wise life threaded between the digital and analog.

Along the way, Michelle has taught group classes in art history, narrative nonfiction, and nature journaling at the high school level. She continues to sketch and keep nature and travel journals.

As a freelance writer, Michelle’s articles and essays have appeared in anthologies, newspapers, and online.

Publications include

Contributing writer, The Curious Historian, Classical Academic Press
Writers Without Margins Journal of Poetry & Prose, Vol VII
Writing in Community, An Anthology of the Third Year, The London Writers’ Salon
Contributor, The Cure for Sleep writing community.

Currently working on

First draft of the book she has researched for the past six years. The setting is here.

Awards, Grants, Memberships

Opportunity Fund grant from the City of Boston and the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture
Salty Quill Writing Retreat for Women
London Writers’ Salon member

Past Fun

Michelle ran a used book business for a decade before which she was a Braille transcriber at The National Braille Press in Boston. Though sighted, she does read Braille: ironic since she almost lost her sight as a teen.

Also, as a teen, Michelle had the now utterly defunct job of Sub-Editor’s Night Runner at the Eastern Daily Press in Norwich, England. She was Young Cricket Writer of the Year. And, one memorable summer, she crewed the Soviet Tall Ship Kruzenstern from Germany to Norway amid 280 Soviet sailors and wrote up her adventures in the local press.