Michelle Barker is a highly accomplished fiction author, born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. She studied at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she graduated with a BA in English literature. Barker also attended the University of Jerusalem for a year before returning to UBC to study comparative literature. She then worked as a research and editing assistant before embarking on a sailing trip across the Pacific Ocean from Vancouver to Hawaii.
Barker is a prolific writer, having published poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction in various literary reviews, magazines, and newspapers. Her poetry has been featured in the Best Canadian Poetry anthology (2011). She has also authored a chapbook of poetry called Old Growth, Clear-Cut: Poems of Haida Gwaii. In addition, Barker has written two novels, The Beggar King (2013) and The House of One Thousand Eyes (2018), which was named a YA Buzz Book for Fall 2018 by Publishers’ Lunch and a Junior Library Guild gold standard pick.
Barker's work has received numerous accolades, including a gold National Magazine Award in personal journalism (2002), a finalist for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award (2016), the OLA Forest of Reading Golden Oak Award (2017), and the Chocolate Lily Book Award (2016). She was also the winner of the 2017 Surrey International Writers' Conference Storyteller Award.
In addition to her writing, Barker is an experienced editor and mentor. She has an MFA in creative writing from UBC's optional-residency program and works as a senior editor with The Darling Axe. She also teaches a creative writing class at UBC. Barker is divorced and has four children. She currently resides in Vancouver, BC, and enjoys spending time with her family and passing on her knowledge to the next generation of writers.