Missive by Michelle Menting

Manipulation and design layout: Elizabeth Stark
Michelle Menting loves the outside. It’s her favorite. She often writes about the outside while inside. She is the author of three collections of poetry—the full-length Leaves Surface Like Skin (Terrapin Books) and two poetry chapbooks—all about the outside but sometimes the inside, or being on the outside looking in. She is poetry & nonfiction editor of Split Rock Review and co-editor of Waters Deep: A Great Lakes Poetry Anthology. Her writing has appeared in American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, DIAGRAM, Southeast Review, and in other places. The recipient of awards and residencies from Sewanee, Bread Loaf, and the National Park Service, she lives in Maine. She loves porcupines, pangolins, spring peepers, and generally all animals that begin with the letter P. More information can be found at www.michellementing.com. Photos of the two essay-writing, obsessed-with-calisthenics tuxedo cats who live where she lives can be found on Instagram @essaycatz, because who doesn’t love calisthenics-obsessed cat essayists?