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 in IT at Yale on staff learning and development.

I taught myself to embroider in 2015, at the same time as I was getting sober. I make things under the handle/name @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. IG is bad for my brain and the planet so now I make things and talk about them on Substack. Lifting weights, biking, and otherwise staying active are important tools in my recovery wheelhouse.

I host a music program, Love & Communication, on the 1st & 3rd Wednesdays of the month from 8-11 pm, on 89.5fm WPKN out of Bridgeport, CT. You can stream live online or via our app! Archives of my show are now also available on Apple Podcasts.

Most of my interests are driven by color, texture, sound, and movement. I’m a maximalist who thrives on sensory experiences. I live in Hamden, CT, with my two kitties, Attorney General Janet Reno, and Steve.