In 1973, Michelle attended Episcopal Divinity School (then Episcopal Theological School) for a couple of years, but she didn't stay to finish her degree.
College/University
Gallery of Michelle Blake
1990
123 Pitkin Rd, Plainfield, VT 05667, USA
In 1990 Michelle Blake attended Goddard College.
Gallery of Michelle Blake
1993
45 Francis Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
In 1993 Michelle Blake studied at Harvard Divinity School and got a Master of Theological Studies.
In 1973, Michelle attended Episcopal Divinity School (then Episcopal Theological School) for a couple of years, but she didn't stay to finish her degree.
(Lily James Connor, a female Episcopalian priest, takes an...)
Lily James Connor, a female Episcopalian priest, takes an interim position, called a tentmaker, in a rich Boston parish, after the death of the much-loved old priest, and begins to suspect the circumstances surrounding his sudden death. A first novel.
(Boston Episcopalian priest Lily James Connor turns sleuth...)
Boston Episcopalian priest Lily James Connor turns sleuth when an event, sponsored by a local ecumenical council studying anti-Semitism in the Church, is disrupted by hate crime and a close friend mysteriously vanishes, and stumbles into a deadly plot that tests her faith and endangers everything - and everyone - she holds dear.
(When Lily Connor takes a job as interim chaplain at Tate ...)
When Lily Connor takes a job as interim chaplain at Tate University, an all but Ivy League school just down the road from Harvard, she's happy to discover that an old friend of hers from seminary is now there as well. It's clear, however, that something is wrong with Samantha - she is thin and skittish and, more important, she looks scared. And when Samantha asks Lily for her help, it becomes something more perilous than Lily could have ever imagined. Someone has been sending Samantha photographs, purportedly of an ancient scroll known as the Book of Light, believed to contain the transcribed words of Jesus himself. No one has ever seen it-no one even knows if it really exists. As Lily begins to investigate, it becomes dangerously clear that that is exactly the way someone wants to keep it.
Michelle Blake, who is also under the name Michelle Blake Simons, is an American poet and writer whose work has appeared in Ploughshares, Southern Review, and other periodicals. She is also an educator at Tufts University.
Background
Michelle Blake was born in Vermont, United States. Michelle Blake spent her childhood with "race hatred and discrimination," a residue of "being raised in the l950's and l960's in the Southwest, in a wealthy community where all the residents were white and ninety-nine percent of the people who worked in the homes were people of color. Her stepfather, with whom Michelle lived from the time she was two years old, was Jewish. He adopted her when she was eighteen, and Michelle took his last name, Simons. But it wasn't until after her stepfather died, when Michelle was in her early twenties, that Michelle’s mother's uncle told her that her stepfather and his entire family were Jewish. It was that odd moment when Michelle realizes that she both has known and hasn't known the truth for a long time. He was a very successful man, but he was plagued by insecurity, as if he had a secret - which, as it turns out, he did. Michelle Blake's stepbrother was killed on the street in Dallas when he was 19. They were very close, and Michelle has always wanted to know what happened, how he ended up at that spot that night, and why he was shot.
Education
In 1973, Michelle attended Episcopal Divinity School (then Episcopal Theological School) for a couple of years, but she didn't stay to finish her degree. At that time, women were not being legally ordained, so it was a strange time for Michelle to be in seminary. In 1990 Michelle Blake attended Goddard College. She received a master of fine arts degree from Goddard College and a master of theological studies degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1993.
As Michelle Blake wanted to become a priest, therefore she was a contributor to "Forms of Grief" on January 1, 1987. Then she took part in the contribution of "The Cheat", "Gates of Horn" and "Burn Victims" in 1987. After that, Michelle Blake was a contributor to "Thanksgiving" and "Prayer for the Unborn" in 1988.
Michelle Blake wrote poetry for the first fifteen or twenty years (depending on when you start counting). During most of that period, she taught writing and literature and founded and directed a graduate writing program at Warren Wilson College. She also taught at Stanford University and Goddard College. Later, Michelle attended Harvard Divinity School, where she got her Master of Theological Studies and for a short while considered seeking ordination in the Episcopal Church. Instead, Michelle started a mystery series that features Lily Connor, a priest, and activist in Boston.
Michelle Blake was a poet and author since 1999. Michelle Blake's first mystery, The Tentmaker, was called "a sensitive, deliberate debut," by a Kirkus Reviews contributor. The protagonist, Lily Connor, is an Episcopal priest, a path Simons had considered while studying at Harvard Divinity School.
Quotations:
"One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home. While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is God’s grace that gives us that faith. As with all spiritual knowledge, two things are true, and equally true, at once. The mind can’t grasp paradox; it is the knowledge of the soul."
Connections
Michelle Blake married Dennis McFarland. He was a writer. They had got children: Katharine, Sam.