Michelle Good is a highly respected literary fiction author from south Central British Columbia, who is best known for her powerful debut novel, "Five Little Indians." Of Cree ancestry, Good is a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. She has a deep personal connection to the impact of residential schools, as her mother, grandmother, and cousins are survivors of this traumatic experience.
Good spent many years working with indigenous communities and organizations before becoming a lawyer. She earned her law degree after three decades of dedicated service and went on to represent some survivors of residential schools. It was during this time that she realized the importance of sharing the story of residential schools with a wider audience, as she felt that many Canadians did not fully understand the devastating impact these institutions had on individuals and communities.
In response, Good began to write a manuscript for her debut novel in the mid-1990s, but it wasn't until much later that she became serious about the project. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at UBC while still practicing law and won the HarperCollins/UBC Prize in 2018. Good's writing, which includes poems, short stories, and essays, has been published in various magazines and anthologies across Canada. She currently lives and writes in south central British Columbia.