Michelle Fishburne
Michelle Fishburne’s life turned upside down during the 2020 COVID spring when she lost her job and could not find another notwithstanding months of trying. At the end of July 2020, when the lease on her post-divorce house was up and her youngest was going off to college, Michelle found herself without a house, a spouse, a job, or a kid to take care of. That is what she did NOT have. What she DID have was a 2006 motorhome, tons of curiosity, and a lot of experiencing RV’ing all over the country. She combined all of these into a cross-country project, interviewing people about their lives during the pandemic. She RV’d 12,000 miles and interviewed hundreds of people. Now 100 of those 1st-person stories are being published by UNC Press in “Who We Are Now: Stories of What Americans Lost and Found During the COVID-19 Pandemic” (March 2023). Michelle continues to be a full-time nomad, living and working in her motorhome, Airbnb’s, and the occasional house sitting gig.
