{"id":19147,"date":"2020-06-14T20:54:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T00:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/?post_type=cu_people&#038;p=19147"},"modified":"2025-08-20T12:46:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:46:37","slug":"michelle-butler-hallett","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/people\/michelle-butler-hallett\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Butler Hallett"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"mb-6 cu-pageheader cu-component-updated md:mb-12\">\n    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 pb-5 after:w-10 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px\">\n                    \n             \n                \n            <\/h1>\n\n    \n    <\/header>\n\n\n\n<p>Michelle Butler Hallett writes fiction about violence, evil, love and grace. A lifelong student, Butler Hallett is drawn to the histories and literature of Russia and Britain, areas of study first discovered at Carleton. She is the author of the novels <em>This Marlowe<\/em>, listed for the ReLit Award and the Dublin International Literary Award, <em>deluded your sailors<\/em>, <em>Sky Waves<\/em>, and <em>Double-blind<\/em>, shortlisted for the Sunburst Award, and the story collection <em>The shadow side of grace<\/em>. Her short stories are widely anthologized in <em>Hard Ol&#8217; Spot<\/em>, <em>The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction<\/em>,<em> Everything Is So Political<\/em>,<em> Running the Whale&#8217;s Back<\/em>, and <em>Best American Mystery Stories 2014<\/em> . Butler Hallett also works in radio. She lives in St John&#8217;s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How has your Carleton English degree informed your professional and\/or creative path?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I knew in&nbsp;childhood I wanted to write fiction, My English studies at Carleton gave me a solid appreciation for the canon while also making plenty of room to explore non-canonical texts and discuss the inherent problems of a canon. I honed my curiosity at Carleton, and that trait makes me a better thinker. As a novelist, I try to see nuances of my characters\u2019 lives, see the intersections, and show them. I can credit that habit of thinking to my English studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why Carleton?&nbsp; What specific experiences or opportunities did you benefit from while studying English at Carleton?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had the immense privilege to come to Carleton from another province and finish my undergrad and some of my grad studies as a full-time student.&nbsp; When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to write fiction. I also knew my own vast ignorance of storytelling development over the centuries could hold me back. I consulted various university calendars and came to consider Carleton\u2019s BA in English perhaps the most comprehensive. I turned down scholarships to Dalhousie and University of Ottawa to attend Carleton. No regrets there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My studies at Carleton gave me a solid grounding in the evolution of storytelling in English, as well as a peek into other cultures and the diversity of human experience via translation. One course in particular, a first-year&nbsp;course&nbsp;called English and Continental Texts, taught by the late Michael Thompson, lit up my hungry mind and sparked me to seek out more. I was already an obnoxious ask-lots-of-questions-while-mouthing-off student; my English studies at Carleton helped me develop my critical thinking and channel my gifts \u2014 if to the chronic exasperation of the professors stuck with me as a student. In truth, I owe much of my success as a novelist to my studies at Carleton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19148,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cu_people_first_name":"Michelle","cu_people_last_name":"Butler Hallett","cu_people_initials":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_people_type":[26],"cu_people_expertise":[],"class_list":["post-19147","cu_people","type-cu_people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_people_type-alumni"],"acf":{"cu_people_job_title":"Novelist","cu_people_degree":"BA Honours English (Carleton, 1993); MA English (Carleton, 1996)","cu_building":false,"cu_people_office_num":"","cu_people_pronoun":"none","cu_people_designation":"","cu_people_email":"","cu_people_phone":"","cu_people_phone_ext":"","cu_people_linkedin":"","cu_people_bluesky":"","cu_people_twitter":"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MButlerHallett","cu_people_instagram":"","cu_people_facebook":"https:\/\/facebook.com\/michellebutlerhallettwriter","cu_people_website":"https:\/\/mbutlerhallett.wordpress.com\/","cu_people_orcid":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/19147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/19147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25828,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/19147\/revisions\/25828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_people_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_type?post=19147"},{"taxonomy":"cu_people_expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_expertise?post=19147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}