WELCOME!
I’m an author and storyteller who brings a mythic perspective to everyday life.
For many years I’ve been telling stories and helping people to see their experience through the power of myth.
My books, short films, and courses are all meant to deepen engagement with our life stories and the myths we live by. They demonstrate how our poetic, mythic imaginations can be activated to see ourselves and our possibilities in new ways.
My nonfiction books include How to Ride a Dragon, which tells the real life dragon stories of women who are dragon boating after breast cancer. The Canadian Nursing Oncology Journal hailed the book as “intellectually challenging, emotionally wrenching, and practice changing.”
I also wrote the Kirkus-starred memoir, The Tower Princess: A Fairy Tale Lived, which tells the story of what happened when I turned to fairy tales for help to live with chronic pain.
Over the years I have worked with many groups of people, including survivors of cancer and people with chronic illnesses. I’ve served as a facilitator, producer, and Artist-in Residence for a number of agencies, including Gilda’s Club of Greater Toronto, and Casey House, a hospice and treatment center for people with HIV-AIDS.
After decades of facilitating workshops to guide people into fairy tales for personal growth, I created WonderLit Fairy Tales at www.wonderlit.com. It provides two self-study courses that guide writers and storytellers into the deeper layers of the fairy tale they want to explore. The site also offers The Story Finder, a portal to hundreds of classic fairy tales.
Through WonderLit Productions, I’ve produced award-winning short films, and, most recently, The Departure Train, a sonically rich audio play which can be heard at www.thedeparturetrain.com.
You’ll find all sorts of avenues into mythic imagination on this website, and I hope that you find inspiration here. I have certainly discovered that once our poetic imaginations have been awakened, life takes on a whole new dimension of meaning and wonder.
Enjoy!
Michelle Tocher
Michelle has a rare talent for helping people to go beneath the surface and work with their stories. I consider the time I have worked with her to be a gift that has enriched my life.
– Eleanor Nielsen, Founder, Dragons Abreast Toronto