Books

Lessons (Un)Planned is a memoir about a woman who went looking for adventure — to be shaped and changed by the world. She found it in bus stations, desert dunes, Indian ashrams, and classrooms stretching from the highlands of Ecuador to the Arabian Gulf. But what she discovered over more than a decade of teaching abroad was something deeper than any destination could offer: a reckoning with self, and the patterns in life that keep repeating until we finally pay attention. By turns tender, funny, and unflinching, Lessons (Un)Planned is for anyone who has ever felt like a stranger in their own life and found that the detours taught them more than the plan ever could.

Michelle Ray is a writer and educator with over 25 years of international teaching experience in Ecuador, Bahrain, Dubai, and the United States. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Nebraska Omaha and serves as an intern at Guernica magazine. Her work has appeared in Storied Stuff, and a poem is forthcoming in Obindo magazine. Her first memoir, Lessons (Un)Planned, is forthcoming in May 2026. An avid reader and runner with a full marathon, multiple half marathons, and 10K races under her belt, she lives in Southern California with her husband, son, and two dogs.