Biography
Michael J. Henry is co-founder and Executive Director at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, one of the largest independent literary centers in the US. At Lighthouse and elsewhere, he’s led workshops for poets and nonfiction writers as well as community-focused workshops for adults living with cancer, critical-care workers, at-risk youth, and generative workshops in museums and other art centers. In 2017 he was awarded a prestigious Livingston Fellowship from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, and since 2019, he's been a principal partner at Colorado Resiliency Arts Lab (CORAL), an NEA-funded research project that uses the practice of art as a tool for reducing medical worker burnout, anxiety, and stress.
His nonfiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines such as Elevation Outdoors, Ekphrastic Review, Hippocampus, Threepenny Review, Pleiades, Copper Nickel, Rio Grande Review, Georgetown Review, Mountain Gazette, The Writer, and 5280 Magazine. He's also published two poetry collections, No Stranger Than My Own and Active Gods, and a chapbook, Intersection, as well as a nonfiction book, Mountain Biking the Colorado Trail. Working alongside Garrett Ammon, Artistic Director at Wonderbound, they created two full-length narrative ballets, Intersection and Gone West.
Michael was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, and he received a BA in English Literature from the University of Rochester, and an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College.
A new collection of poetry, Gun Poems, is forthcoming from Middle Creek Publishing in early 2026.
