Michel Stone is a writer, speaker, educator, and community volunteer. Her novels Border Child (2017, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday) and The Iguana Tree (Hub City Press, 2012) have been compared to the writings of John Steinbeck, and both books have been optioned for film. She is the 11th generation of her family born in Charleston County, South Carolina, and her writing reflects her deep ties to and love of the Lowcountry. Fig Days, her third novel, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in April 2027. She is the winner of the Mary Frances Hobson Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Arts and Letters, the Patricia Winn Award for Southern Literature, and the South Carolina Fiction Award. Michel’s novels have been favorably reviewed by The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker, Charleston Magazine, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Charlotte Observer, The New York Journal of Books, Texas Observer, Kirkus (starred review), Publishers Weekly (starred review), Booklist, and many others. She's a graduate of Clemson University with a Master's Degree from Converse College, and she is an alumna of the Sewanee Writers Conference. She has received residencies from the Ucross Foundation, the Wildacres Residency Program, and the Rowland Writers Retreat. Michel is a Ucross Fellow, Spartanburg Regional Fellow, Liberty Fellow, and a Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Her first name is pronounced like Michelle (people always ask!)

Articles:

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Fiction Reminds Us That We’re All In This Together: Literary Hub

Michel Stone on the hard work of finding a common humanity

Interviews:

 
Cover to Cover, the Converse book club, connects Converse friends and alumnae from across the country with first-year students by sharing the experience of common reading. This year's book is The Iguana Tree by Converse alumna Michel Smoak Stone, MEd '99.
 
 
A conversation with Michel Stone, author of The Iguana Tree, the community book read of Upstate International 2015. Interview taken by Deryle Hope of USC Upstate.

Upstate international selected The Iguana Tree for its Community Read 2015. Watch the interview conducted by Deryle Hope, Ed. D., Director, Center for International Studies, USC Upstate, conducted on the campus of Clemson University.

 
 
Interview with author Michel Stone during 2013's Blue Ridge Bookfest

Watch the interview conducted by Rita Van Zandt at the Blue Ridge Book Festival, 2013.