Michelle Khonsari has always been drawn to the shadows hiding at the edges of ordinary life. Her stories live in that uneasy space where familiar places begin to feel unfamiliar, where secrets linger beneath the surface, and where danger rarely announces itself until it is far too late.
She started writing almost as soon as she could hold a pencil. At five years old, she wrote her first book, which her elementary school added to the library, giving her an early glimpse into the strange magic of seeing other people step into worlds she created. Through childhood and into her school years, writing remained a constant. Her work appeared regularly in school publications, but more importantly, storytelling became the place where her imagination could roam without limits.
Michelle later studied creative writing through Gotham Writers in New York and earned a Bachelor of Science in Legal Studies from Berkeley College, graduating summa cum laude. That balance between imagination and precision shapes her work today. Her novels blend atmospheric tension with carefully layered details, building stories that feel both unsettling and deeply human.
A lifelong reader of suspense and horror, Michelle grew up devouring the works of Goosebumps creator R. L. Stine, Stephen King, and Mary Higgins Clark before discovering later influences such as Lisa Jackson, Karen Harper, and Alafair Burke. Those influences helped shape her love of psychological tension and layered mysteries, as well as the unsettling realization that monsters do not always look monstrous.
She first published Creatures in 2016, followed by Harbinger of Death and Within the World of Shadows in 2018. Though those early works are now out of print, they marked the beginning of a voice that continued to evolve with the release of Ravencrest in 2024, later reissued in 2026 as The Ravencrest Murders.
Michelle lives in Tennessee, where she continues to write and disappear down fascinating rabbit holes for future novels. When she is not working on her next story, she can usually be found untangling logic puzzles, listening to music, or studying language, including Irish and American Sign Language.
Early Recognition in Mystery Writing
While studying at Berkeley College, Michelle completed a course titled Special Topics: Entertaining Murder, centered on detective fiction, classic crime structures, and short-form mystery writing. For her final assignment, she wrote a two-minute mystery called The Double-Handed Bandit, which readers can now attempt to solve themselves. The piece was selected by her professor as the featured class mystery for students to solve, and several classmates later singled it out as their favorite submission in the course.
Performance & Presentation
As part of the same program, Michelle presented a recorded reading of the prologue of The Ravencrest Murders, sharing an early glimpse into the atmosphere, tension, and psychological unease that would later define the novel. The presentation introduced audiences to the dark tone and layered mystery at the heart of the story long before its publication.
North Street Book Prize (2024)
An earlier edition of The Ravencrest Murders was entered into the 2024 North Street Book Prize, which received 1,930 submissions. Fewer than twenty percent of entries advanced beyond the first round, and Ravencrest was among the works selected for Round Two.
Judge Annie Mydla praised the manuscript’s “unity of style and tone,” writing:
“I was quickly drawn in by the detail, color, and most of all, the consistently authentic feel of the writing.”
