Carmien Michels (1990) is a Belgian writer and performer. She dances between pen and stage, between urban and classical. With sharp observations, she creates an often dark world, rhythmic, powerful and deeply personal.
In 2013 she graduated as Master Drama from the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and debuted with the novel 'We are water' (De Bezige Bij, 2013), which made the shortlists of the Debut Prize and the Bronze Owl. Her second novel 'Ask the Lightning' (Pelckmans) was published in 2015, followed by her poetry debut 'We come from afar' (Polis, 2017).
In 2016, she won the Dutch and European Poetry Slam Championships and took bronze at the World Championships in Paris. Since then, she has toured the world and collaborated with numerous artists. From 2017 to 2019, she was one of the young authors in the European talent development program CELA: Connecting Emerging Literary Artists. Since a few years, she has also been part of the international poetry pool Versopolis. Excerpts of her novels, short stories and poems have appeared in ten languages.
Between train and trip, she resides in Antwerp, where she teaches and writes new work. She is the founder and curator of Watlab, a collective workshop for literary makers at the Blikfabriek in Hoboken. Most recently, she published her collection of short stories 'Vaders die rouwen' (2021) with Uitgeverij Querido, which made it to the shortlists of the Biesheuvel Prize, the Fintro Literatuurprijs and the Boekenbon Literatuurprijs, and was awarded the Inktaap and the jury and reader prize of BNG Bank Literatuurprijs 2022.
Course components: Specific Teaching Methodology Drama module Text and Creation.
(c) Saskia Vanderstichele