Michèle Gautard 

Writer - author (novels, books of poetry, plays)

Member of the Society of French writers - Société des Gens de Lettres (SGDL) 

Member of la SOFIA

Website: https://ecrivainmichelegautard.com

Blog: https://michele-gautard.blogspot.com

University education: Graduated from University Paris VII - English Institute Charles V - A degree (British literature) and a master’s degree (American literature). 

Activity as a writer: For several decades, she has been involved in a research and creation work, mainly based on the writing of notebooks (more than 300 and ongoing). Pages on which she has developed intimate and inner thoughts on being. But numerous of these pages also deal with the illusion, the real and their common boarders. 

She has been exploring these recurring themes through various forms of writing. Several of these notebooks are mainly devoted to her impressions on the world, further to her numerous worldwide travels. 

Notebooks are sometimes like wide-open spaces or sometimes they are “dormer windows” opened on the inner being. Some of these pages became bridges which drove her to write a novel, a book of poetry or sometimes a play.

A specific work was born from the desire to gather all this matter; but inevitably new texts came out from this experiment. This work is entitled “Journal de cendres”. When it was published in the fall of 2024, this book received the epistolary praise from Amélie Nothomb. This letter now appears as a banner on the book cover.

Several of her novels took unexpected forms and became works close to “experimental”. These novels were written “vertically”, as if they were long poems. This “vertical” way of writing became a space where prose and poetry were interwoven for devising fictional stories or novels.

Winner of several poetry competitions, her poems are published in various magazines and anthologies in France and abroad. One of her books of poetry “Au bord des choses” has been translated into English, Italian and German.

In 2011 she was invited to read her poems at the French Institute in Berlin during the night of poetry. 

She had also written few short stories, numerous texts and articles (analysis of films, books, performing art and theater). Some of them are on line on her website or on her blog.

PUBLICATIONS:

·      Publisher, Éditions Unicité « Le jardin des césures » (Book of poetry)

http://www.editions-unicite.fr/auteurs/GAUTARD-Michele/le-jardin-des-cesures/index.php

·      Publisher, Éditions Unicité « Journal de cendres » (hybrid work)

http://www.editions-unicite.fr/auteurs/GAUTARD-Michele/journal-de-cendres/index.php

·      Publisher, Les Éditions du Net - Digital platform, non-exclusive publication at Publisher’s expense (digital and paper publication) 

« Des hommes en chemin » (novel), « Au bord des choses » (book of poetry), « Le goût de l’autre » (novel written vertically, « Dits-Vers » (book of poetry), « Les amants irradiés » (novel written vertically), and « Encore un jour, l’éternité » (The last pages of a life on the edge of the last breath)

https://www.leseditionsdunet.com/livre/encore-un-jour-leternite

https://www.leseditionsdunet.com/livre/les-amants-irradies

https://www.leseditionsdunet.com/livre/dits-vers

https://www.leseditionsdunet.com/livre/le-gout-de-lautre

https://www.leseditionsdunet.com/livre/au-bord-des-choses

https://www.leseditionsdunet.com/livre/des-hommes-en-chemin

OTHER WORKS:

Novels:

·      « L’âme de fond »

.       " L'ange noir"

·      « Les anges blessés »

·      « Sendai, mon amour », adaptation of the vertical version entitled « Elles »

·      « Les portes du silence », adaptation of the vertical version entitled « Le goût de l’autre »

Books of poetry: 

·      “Vers solitude”

·      “Partition silencieuse”

Notebooks and journal:

·      « Encore un jour, l’éternité » The last pages of a life on the edge of the last breath. (Publisher, Les Éditions du Net for the French version) This work was translated into German by Rüdiger Fischer (Noch ein Tag vor der Ewigkeit).

·      « Lettres namibiennes » A travel notebook.

Plays : 

·      « À l’aube de la nuit » 

·      « Quand s’échappe la lumière » 

Other creation: “Carnet d’automne” A giant notebook imagined and devised by Michèle Gautard but made with the help of the talented bookbinder Gilles Barnett. 200 pages were hand-sewed. The size of this notebook is 90 cm long, 70 cm wide, 1m40 opened pages. Weight: 30 kilos. A work of writing in progress.

*****

She conducted her writing work in parallel with her professional activity. 

Since 2018, she has decided to be a full-time writer. 

Professional activity: 

International Development Manager and Representative for Festivals at the Production Department of INA(Institut National de l’Audiovisuel)

·      Head of International co-productions in the field of documentaries. She closely worked with numerous documentary film makers. She pitched worldwide their film projects (international markets and conferences, panels, world premiere in New-York …) and helped them in developing their content for fitting the international broadcasting and to finance their films. Then she promoted their documentary films in worldwide festivals. 

·      She also initiated, devised and managed an international workshop for INA Production. The objective of this workshop was to devise international creative documentary films from the genesis of a project in common with international broadcasters. This workshop was composed of French producers and international commissioning editors. A certain number of films were produced from this synergy and broadcast in France and abroad.