Michele Weldon was born June 5, 1958, the youngest of six in less than eight years. She inherited the "Juvenile Journal" at age 10 from her older sister Madeleine, a publishing empire of monthly mimeographed newsletters sent to 50 relatives for 50 cents a year. It folded in 1970.
A journalist for newspapers and magazines for more than 40 years, Weldon has written thousands of articles and columns as a magazine editor, newspaper and digital contributing columnist for Chicago Tribune, CNN, Washington Post, NBC Think, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, TIME, USA Today, Slate, AARP The Ethel, The Hill, Christian Science Monitor and more.
Her latest book is a collection of essays, "The Time We Have: Essays on Pandemic Living" (Northwestern University Press) is out in July 2024. "Act Like You're Having A Good Time" (Northwestern University Press, 2020) won the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) 1st Place Gold Award for nonfiction essays book. She also won 1st place for this book for nonfiction from Illinois Women's Press Association. Her award-winning memoir, "Escape Points (Chicago Review Press, 2015) was named an Editor's Choice Nonfiction Book of 2015 by Booklist.
Weldon is emerita faculty at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a senior leader with The OpEd Project. She is editorial director of Take The Lead, a nonprofit global leadership initiative working toward gender parity across all disciplines by 2025.
A frequent live storyteller in the Chicago area and beyond, Weldon has been on stage at The Moth, where she was a finalist in the Moth Grandslam in 2012.
Her first book, "I Closed My Eyes" (Hazelden, 1999) has been translated into seven languages and the 2012 edition contains a new foreword and updated text. Weldon's second book,"Writing to Save Your Life" (Hazelden, 2001) is a prescriptive book on the power of expressive, personal writing, that has been the source of Weldon's writing workshops for the last 20 years. The 2012 edition contains a new foreword and new essays.
"Everyman News" (University of Missouri,2008) examines the trends in modern journalism and recently won the nonfiction book first place award from the National Federation of Press Women. Weldon's fourth book is a nonfiction memoir about raising her three sons alone while struggling with cancer and working as a journalist and professor.
She contributed an essay to the 2011 book, "This I Believe on Fatherhood," (Wiley & Sons) and read it on NPR and was interviewed on the topic by Bob Edwards. Other chapters she has written for anthologies include "21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook," (2009) and "Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates" (University of Mississippi Press,1989)and "Belly Laughs & Babies (Laughing Stork Press, 1997).
Weldon is a popular keynote speaker on issues related to women and the media and is also a senior leader with The Oped Project. She has led core seminars since 2011 at Public Voices Fellowships at Princeton, Stanford, Wellesley, Brown, Loyola, DePaul, Rush, Cambridge and Northwestern universities plus several foundations. The mother of three grown sons, she lives in the Chicago area, and serves on the advisory boards of Sarah's Inn, Global Girl Media Chicago, Children's Foundation and Beat The Streets Chicago.
