Halloween was always my favorite holiday,” shares Michelle Bowser. “When I was younger, Wayne Township had a Halloween party, and it was so much fun. I looked forward to it every year.”
Michelle is a local author and actress born and raised in Spraggs and has lived in Greene County much of her life, with a brief exception to attend California University. Michelle always enjoyed writing, and her mother, a teacher at Spraggs elementary, encouraged her. Outside influences like her love of Halloween, Elvira, science fiction and fantasy novels, and heavy metal combined with her passion for writing and she has penned multiple Bizarro novellas and short stories.
Michelle’s first book, Don’t Yell at the Damn Desk Clerk, was created from her on-the-job experiences at a small local hotel. “It was quite an experience. And it was the kind of thing where I said, ‘I’m going to write a book about this someday,” Michelle laughs. “I know most people say that, but I actually did! I took notes while I was there, and later I would pull the notebook out of the drawer and look at it, and remember each story, and then get so mad and slam the drawer shut. Finally, one day I took the notebook out of the drawer, and I laughed instead of getting mad, and I knew that I could finally write it.”
The people in Michelle’s writers group encouraged her to publish the book, and she originally self-published and made it available on Kindle through Amazon about a decade ago. After reading an excerpt from Desk Clerk at an open mic night in Fairmont, Michelle connected with Gary Vincent, the owner of a small publishing company. She sent him a manuscript for her second novel, The Hags of Black County, and has been working with Burning Bulb Publishing ever since.
And then Gary persuaded Michelle to jump into another artistic endeavor – acting. While working with John Russo on My Uncle John is a Zombie, Gary called Michelle and persuaded her to join the project. “I was in a play in second grade in Spraggs Elementary. That was the extent of my acting. I was a nervous wreck,” Michelle says.
She worked through the nervousness and a small role in the movie, in addition to assisting behind the scenes and organizing local locations to shoot the film. Her cousin Alex Shields filled a larger role in the movie, and other relatives had small roles in that film and subsequent others. Parts of the movie were filmed at her aunt and uncle’s property in Spraggs – Shields Herb & Flower Farm and Demesne Winery.
Filming in Greene County was enjoyable, Michelle says. It brought fewer interruptions due to other people and surroundings, and with much of the filming being on private property, less of a need for filming permits.
Michelle got another chance to dive into acting with a starring role when her Desk Clerk book was turned into a film into 2019 with the Help of Gary. Getting to star in the movie based on her experiences was cathartic. “I hated that job so much and I felt like I had wasted two years of my life. This was a good way to get those years back. It was like I was getting all those years back.”
In addition to her roles in My Uncle John is a Zombie and Desk Clerk, Michelle played a major character in the remake of John Russo’s Midnight, filmed around Waynesburg, Spraggs, Blacksville, and Bridgeport, WV. “It was fun to play evil Cynthia. It’s sometimes fun to be the bad guy!”
Michelle is artistically versatile, going from writing, to acting, to reading for audiobooks and more. “If you do the same thing all the time, it gets repetitive. You have to break away and do different stuff. If you do different things, when you go back to what you did before, it’s fresh again.”
When asked if she has some advice for new writers, Michelle says, “Don’t listen to writer advice. Just write!” And if you’re not sure about self-publishing or working with a publisher, she encourages you to work with a small publisher and not get lost in the oversaturated world of self-publishing.
Michelle is currently writing and is hoping to publish something next year. Michelle’s book catalog includes Don’t Yell at The Damn Desk Clerk, The Hags of Black County, Nuke Punk, and A Gross Miscellany, available for sale in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook form on burningbulbpublishing.com and Amazon. Her work can also be found in two additional short story anthologies: Spooky Tales Volume 1 and David J. Fairhead Presents Fiends of the Flesh. You can also find her on Facebook @authormichellebowser.
“It’s rewarding making people laugh – or scream!” Michelle says, “If they do that, then I did my job.”