Back to the Indie Corner series
It was cool to hear from author Michelle (M.E.) Schuman, whose The Rare Earth series’ part 2, The Catalyst, just came out this fall.
Michelle is the award-winning author of The Understory: A Female Environmentalist in the Land of the Midnight Sun and the environmental thriller Where The Sleeping Lady Lies. Her novel The Catalyst continues her signature blend of suspense and science, drawing on nearly four decades of experience as a wildlife biologist, wetland scientist, and ecologist in Alaska.
Michelle brings an authentic voice to science-based thrillers, crafting stories where nature itself becomes a force of tension and consequence. When not researching the powerful—and sometimes deadly—forces of the natural world, she volunteers with the Marine Science Center, the Northwest Marine Center, and serves on the Humane World for Animals’ National Animal Rescue Team, and dabs in poetry.
Now living in the Pacific Northwest, in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains and along the shores of the Salish Sea, Michelle finds inspiration in the wild. She explores by kayak, boat, scuba diving, cold-water plunging, hiking, biking, and backcountry skiing. Her passion lies in traveling to remote ecosystems across the globe to witness wildlife in their natural habitats.
Mary: Welcome to Dragonfly! Tell us something about your life that not many people know.
Michelle: Most people see me as strong, independent, adventurous—someone who has spent her life fighting to protect wild places. What very few know is that at 25, I lost not only my husband but also my will to live. He had joined me in Alaska a year after I moved north. We celebrated our fourth anniversary camping at Denali, roasting marshmallows and drinking champagne, and soon after I left for the bush tracking and mapping caribou, reindeer, and muskox as a wildlife biologist. I was in a remote camp when I learned he’d been killed by a reckless driver—with her children in the car.
What nearly broke me wasn’t just the loss, but the reaction of some family members who blamed me for his death. The demon of regret, if I had not gone to Alaska, all would be well. I was fighting bill collectors, working for poverty-level government wages, trying to prove myself in a male-dominated profession, and grieving the future we had planned together. I had survived a violent childhood, left home at seventeen, put myself through college, living on one can of soup a day—and yet I believed, for a time, that I was somehow responsible. It was a belief planted in me long before adulthood.
What saved me was my cat, Chessy. When I hit bottom—sitting alone in a dark Anchorage apartment—she literally knocked a bottle of pills out of my hands. I started laughing through tears at the absurdity of it, threw the pills away, got up, showered, and went straight to my lawyer’s office to fight for justice for my husband.
I’ve learned that no matter how strong we appear, we all carry vulnerability. I am a strong sensitive—a woman who feels deeply for anyone without a voice. That sensitivity was once used against me. Now it’s my greatest strength.
Mary: That’s gotta be tough, and I love the story of Chessy. What led you to the creative outlet of writing?
Michelle: In my scientific career, writing was essential—analyzing millions of acres of soils, vegetation, wildlife, and landscapes. But creative writing didn’t arrive until my helicopter accident. I found myself stranded on a ridgeline and then months on crutches and braces until surgery. It was a long two years, but the light at the end of the tunnel was that I knew I would be able to walk again. My partner went on vacation, so it was me, a computer, a couch, and my cat, Chessy.
I believed my field career might be over. Between fighting workers’ comp, finding legal help, and barely being able to leave the house, I began to write. The story that poured out became Jaguar Moon, set in a place I’d never visited—French Guiana. I found a botanical survey for medicinal plants from a Montana PhD, and my plot grew around a destructive mine threatening an Indigenous community. The characters who later appear in Where the Sleeping Lady Lies were born from Jaguar Moon.
Writing pulled the pain out of my body and onto the page. It became, like my cat, a form of salvation.
Mary: Can you tell us more about how your writing aligns with nature and place?
Michelle: I’ve now written four books, including Jaguar Moon, and all reflect my brand: the environment, place, and the hidden and healing, stories within nature.
When I left Alaska after 40 years and moved to the lower 48, I realized how little many people truly understand their environment. We talk about being “one with nature,” but do we know what that really means?
A friend once told me how wonderful it was that “Dawn saved all those oiled animals,” referring to the Exxon Valdez spill. That comment triggered my memoir (The Understory: A Female Environmentalist in the Land of the Midnight Sun)—because the reality of environmental crises is far more complex.
My memoir celebrates the ecosystems that shaped me: forests, mountains, tundra, rivers, oceans. Where the Sleeping Lady Lies transports readers from Western Alaska to Tibet—two regions rich in Indigenous culture, threatened by climate change and resource extraction. My goal is to pull readers out of their bubble and into places they may never see.
I didn’t travel until I was 31. I took a backpack and went straight to fragile ecosystems and developing countries. My “accommodations” were the stars in the sky. Place taught me everything.
The Catalyst, book two in the Rare Earth Series, moves from the Middle East to Alaska’s North Slope. Through landscape and culture, I explore resilience—of nature, and of people living with the consequences of global indulgence.
I write so readers don’t just see nature—they feel it.
Mary: Speaking of your memoir, what are some untold stories from the Exxon Valdez spill and other hard truths about the fossil fuel industry?
Michelle: The Oil Spill Contingency Plan (OSPC) plan was not followed. The plan is required for transport or holding of hazardous materials and waste. The Exxon Valdez had no spill equipment. Alyeska, the responsible oversight company, had no available spill equipment. The regional regulator for Alaska Department of Conservation, had been screaming bloody murder for years that there will be a major oil spill because of negligence. For three days, the Exxon sat in calm water and no boom. I talk about what this regulator saw as he was the first to board the Exxon during the spill. In Chapter 21 (“Black Death”) of my memoir, I discuss the process and failure of the legal procedures with oil spill contingency plans as well as conducting oil spill response drills, and the confrontation I experienced when changing the way drills are performed.
Our environmental laws are influenced by fossil fuel interests who are deep into that political and greedy pot of influence. Throughout my career, whether working for private, state, or federal agencies, I have witnessed environmental regulations and policy manipulated, using many loopholes in the law and pressuring congressional members to reign in Agency personnel. Continuing resolutions, once rare, are now common, using budgets to control how an agency functions.
Mary: You’re doing wonderful work. I just happened to watch Running for the Mountains (on Kanopy, a free Canadian library movie channel) yesterday. Having roots in the Appalachian area, I was heartbroken by the continued story of the oil & gas industry, where people continue to fight for clean water, soil, and air—a story repeated everywhere, all the time, around the world. It’s partially why Dragonfly.eco exists: to show similar stories, often illustrated in fiction. It isn’t always fossil fuels. Sometimes it’s poaching, chemicals, palm oil, and a billion other things. It always involves powerful industry and politics playing as Goliath against the environment. My original question was: Do your books have a message? Of course, they do, but maybe you can talk more about that?
Michelle: Absolutely. Our environment is at risk because of our choices. I’ve spent my life studying, witnessing, and responding to those impacts.
My mission is to educate through story—to weave romance, danger, and suspense with scientific truth. My antagonists are not evil caricatures; they are shaped by what they’ve endured. The Catalyst, in particular, poses the question: Who is really the villain?
Recently, a friend and reader, texted me a New York Times article that the Trump Administration opened up the entire Arctic Coastal Plain to fossil fuel development; the Serengeti of Alaska. She said, “Once again, Michelle, the headlines are ripped straight from your Novel, The Catalyst.”
Mary: The Serengeti of Alaska is a great analogy. I once used a similar analogy (Serengeti of the North) when writing about marine life—both migratory and more stationary—that passes through or lives permanently in the intertidal and ocean corridors surrounding Canada’s raincoast.
Now off to a more personal question: what’s your greatest experience in nature?
Michelle: That’s hard. There have been many, but one stands above the rest.
After retiring, I booked a trip to Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda. I’d always dreamed of Rwanda. My heroes were Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, and I had long “adopted” a gorilla through the Fossey Foundation. As a retirement gift, staff even adopted a baby gorilla for me from Fossey’s original research troop.
Most visitors never see the research groups, but my guide made some calls. Suddenly, we were hiking into the Virunga Mountains to meet them.
I saw Cantsbee—the legendary silverback—and then my adopted gorilla. Cantsbee was one of the last gorillas to have been personally named and studied by Fossey. As I stood quietly, a mother brushed past me, her baby following her. Then the young one stopped, grabbed my pant leg, stood, and looked directly into my eyes, with beautiful, amber eyes, full of wonder.
Tears fell. In that moment, every sacrifice—every hardship, every injury, every fight—was worth it. If I had died right then, I would have died fulfilled.
Mary: What an amazing experience! When you were growing up, what was your favorite story?
Michelle: My mother was a reader, nonfiction especially, so books became my love language early in life. I devoured the Book of Knowledge, bought my first personal book Darwin’s Origin of Species at age ten, loved Jack London, and of course devoured Nancy Drew. Curiosity and mystery, the foundation of my life.
Mary: Funny, my history and so many of my colleagues have similar early reading experiences. What’s next for you?
Michelle: For now, marketing, pitching podcasts and producers, and taking the Rare Earth Series to the next level. These books were written for film. They aren’t typical thrillers. place drives the story as much as character. I want readers to close their eyes and be in the landscapes I describe.
I’m also, for the first time in two years, taking a vacation. I’m heading to India to track the last big cat I haven’t seen in the wild: the Bengal or Amer tiger. After two years of severe spinal compression and barely being able to walk, I finally found a surgeon who relieved some of the pressure. India will be my test—and my renewal.
After that? I’d love to finally revise and edit Jaguar Moon as book three of the Rare Earth Series. That story gave birth to my writing career. It deserves some care, and lots of editing.
Mary: Michelle, I’m so glad that we met. Your passion and life story is amazing and genuine and something to aspire to. Thank you for all you do.
