About

Welcome to Mrs. Fitz’s Story Emporium. I am Michele Fitzpatrick, a Chicago writer who got into this line of work some 25 years ago, after reading the following in Elie Wiesel’s riveting novel, Gates of the Forest: “God made Man because He loves stories.”

I am a former staff writer at Chicago Tribune, business technology columnist, a teacher focused on media ethics and narrative journalism, an editor of magazines that champion women and lifelong learning, and in 2015 a novelist. The Women’s Center is contemporary fiction set in Chicago that recounts the adventures of four unlikely heroines who confront extraordinary challenges as ordinary people do: flawed, funny, occasionally furious, ultimately with a little help from their friends.

I don’t know if I’ll ever write a story good enough to entertain the Almighty, but it seems a worthy endeavor. I’ve got Him pegged as a good listener, which is what I’m here to do: lend an ear to anyone who wants to write, loves to write or wishes – darn it – that he or she had written.

For a couple decades, I’ve managed to write somehow or another…as a novelist, journalist, editor, teacher and champion of life-long learning. I’m here to learn from anyone who drops by and happy to share what I’ve picked up.

Lately, I’ve been writing about…writing…about growing up in the Midwest during the lively 1960s..about living in Chicago. What have you been writing about lately?