headshot of Michelle Morgan. She is a white woman with brown wavy hair. She is wearing black glasses and a red and white striped button down. She is in front of racks of CDs.

I grew up in rural Maine in the 80s and 90s in a family of working class people who made things with their hands.

I spent most of my childhood reading, exploring the woods, dancing, and drawing.

I had my son Ezra in 1999 and came out in 2002, at the age of 23.

I’ve worked in restaurants and catering, as a bartender, office assistant, medical and artists’ model, bookkeeper, college dean and instructor, personal care attendant, and more. Someone once told me I should write about all the different things I’ve done for money, and they weren’t wrong.

I earned a PhD in American Studies at Yale in 2017, where I studied visual and material culture and racial formations. My dissertation, “Material Possessions: Race, Materiality, and the Limits of the Human in American Culture, 1820-1940” passed with Distinction. I miss academia sometimes, but not often! I work as faculty support staff at Yale in Accessibility.

I taught myself to embroider in 2015, at the same time as I was getting sober. I make things under the handle @mutuallyassureddeconstruction, which started as a nerdy joke about postmodernism, growing up in the 80s, and queer relationality but has become a kind of alter ego. Lifting weights, biking, and otherwise staying active are important tools in my recovery wheelhouse.

I host a monthly music program, Love & Communication, every third Friday from 10 pm to 2 am at WPKN 89.5fm, Bridgeport, CT.

Most of my interests are driven by color, texture, sound, and movement. I’m a self-proclaimed maximalist who thrives on sensory experiences.

I live in West Haven, CT, with my wife Kate and our two cats, Jack and Denise.