Michelle Souliere, Strange Maine
Michelle Souliere, editor of the Strange Maine blog and owner of the Green Hand Bookshop. (Brian Fitzgerald/Fitzgerald Photo)
Editor’s Note: Michelle Souliere, 39, is the epitome of a Portland creative. She is creator of the Strange Maine blog, editor of the Strange Maine Gazette, and a published book author: Strange Maine: True tales from the Pine Tree State. She also owns the Green Hand Bookshop on Congress Street. Like many in Portland, Michelle wears a lot of hats and still manages to enjoy the more unusual side of life in the city on Casco Bay. Read on…
IP: Are you a Mainer?
MS: I’ve been in Portland since kindergarten and I’ve been in Maine since I was three or four. I went away for a semester to go to [Bard College at] Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which at the time was the only early college in the United States that would accept students out of their second year of high school that was accredited.
IP: Why was your stay so short?
MS: They didn’t have any endowment and so financially it was really tricky. It was not cheap. After I came back, I was technically a high school dropout, so I went back and got my G.E.D. a few years later. I went part time to college for 12 years before I went full time again and at the time I switched from USM to the Maine College of Art. I was at MECA for four years and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts [in illustration with a concentration in Printmaking].
IP: So you’re really an artist.
MS: Yes. That’s the other, unpaid job.
IP: So you’ve been in Portland all along. Does your family still live here?
MS: My mom’s in South Portland. I have a brother who does diplomatic service overseas but the other two are in Portland—my two brothers—and my dad is in Gorham. We’re all fairly closely located.
IP: Why Portland?
MS: I don’t know. At some point when I was in high school all my friends all thought Portland was boring and sucked. At some point I must have changed my mind because I just really like Portland. It’s home. There’s a lot of stuff going on here and basically what I decided after a point was, if people were bored with it it probably was because they couldn’t figure out something to do. I figure most anybody who has a creative mind and some initiative can find either things going on or make things happen.
IP: Describe Portland.
MS: Young, varied, creative.
IP: What would you most like to see happen here?
MS: I’d like the economy to get better.
IP: Do you see that happening in the next 12 months?
MS: I wouldn’t say in the next 12 months. I think it’s going to be a longer pull than that. As a state, hopefully most of the time we’re very practical and especially in the greater Portland area we’re very liberal. I think we’ve worked very hard to balance the state really well. We need to husband the resources we have—the natural (beauty) everybody comes here for and the stuff that needs to grow, like the culture in Portland. I think a lot of us are a little worried a lot of that is going to get shoved down the drainpipe in the next few years without so much of a ‘by your leave’.
IP: That’s depressing.
MS: Yeah, it is, but it’s just a longer haul. We’ll figure a way around it. We’re nothing if not creative problem solvers. The way a lot of people have started their own small businesses in the wake of the economy tanking out kind of points out that we know—or a lot of us know—the world doesn’t end . Just because the economy’s going bad we still have to pay the bills and get by and do something. There are a lot of people who are holding out for jobs who wound up unemployed and I think it stinks. Your morale is built into what you do for a living and when you’re constantly thwarted at what you do for a living it takes its toll on you. I think that my biggest wish for the Portland area is for something in the economy to improve to the point where people can figure something out for jobs. It’s a big problem affecting a lot of people who are really good at the various things that they do and there’s no reason why somebody shouldn’t be putting them to work.
IP: What are you carrying in your pockets?
MS: Right now? I have the front door key to my apartment. I have some money that I emptied out of my register that hopefully will get deposited in my bank. Chapstick.
IP: You’re practical.
MS: Yeah. And my cellphone.
IP: Nice.
IP: Can you tell me one secret to your success?
MS: Persistence. It seems anytime I decide I want to do something so long as I follow through with it it happens. It might not be easy, but it gets there. I decided I wanted to go to art school, and I went to art school. I decided I wanted to own a bookstore, and I own a bookstore. I wrote a book because I wanted to write a book. It all just seems to have to do with setting your feet on the road in the direction of the thing you want and figuring out ‘how do I get this’.
IP: What’s something nobody knows about you?
MS: I don’t like to wear dresses and I don’t know exactly why.
IP: That’s a good answer.
MS: I tried to psychoanalyze myself on that. I suspect it has something to do with the feeling of vulnerability but I don’t know. It’s something I don’t discuss a lot. Maybe I’m just a tomboy and I should just deal with it.
IP: What time do you wake up and go to bed?
MS: One day in particular I get up before six because I go out walking and running with a friend really early. On days when I go walking and running by myself, usually 6:30. If I’m not doing anything, which is rare, I might sleep till 8 o’clock.
IP: How about going to bed?
MS: Usually between 10:30 and midnight. Probably 11 on average.
IP: What would you be doing right now if you weren’t here with me?
MS: That’s a good question. I might be walking home. Getting my exercise.
IP: Bringing it back to Portland, is there anything the city needs more of?
MS: That’s hard to break down. My viewpoint has changed a lot in the past few years since I’ve opened my business. More people to follow through with things…just in general.
IP: Isn’t it funny that as a business owner you see that much more clearly?
MS: Yeah..my husband and I saw that before. Lots of people talk about doing things and very few actually follow through and do them.
IP: Better for you, though.
MS: Yeah, we figured out that must have been why we ended up in the Portland Phoenix’s top 100 most influential people in Portland. We just actually do things…that’s the only thing we could think of.
IP: Last question. How about something that Portland could use less of?
MS: Strife. There’s a lot of angry people and people taking things for granted. The people taking things for granted usually eventually turn mean and angry. That would be my main thing.
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© 2011, Brian Fitzgerald. All rights reserved.