A Year in the Life: The Journals of Michelle Wright

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

Cleaning house, getting the car fixed, working out at the gym, shopping
for food, having a yard sale, losing her cat, going to church....

The first thing one learns about country music star Michelle Wright,
who was born in Chatham, Ontario, and now lives in Nashville, is that
she lives a life like anyone else—that is, in between writing songs,
listening to songs, discussing songs for two new CDs, helping her
husband in his peripatetic business of selling Air Chairs, rehearsing
with her band, driving long distances for one-night gigs, searching for
show wardrobe (“I am a very frugal person”), laying down bed tracks
for the new Christmas album, travelling to Honduras for World Vision,
making a demo for her “Women of Country” radio show, recording lead
vocals for the new country CD, listening to more songs....

This day-by-day account of the year 2004, with small black-and-white
photos, may seem destined for fans who will enjoy the peek into the
private life of the singer, but it is also an eye-opener to anyone
interested in the music business who wants to know what goes on behind
the scenes. Along with the humdrum events of daily housekeeping we learn
of the constant travelling, often to Canada, and the back-breaking
schedule of tours when the bus leaves after the show, drives all night,
and unloads the band in the early hours of the morning so that they can
start to set up for that night’s show.

At the start of the year, Michelle and her husband, Marco, discuss the
possibility of having children; in December, she is discussing the
choice of songs for the new country album and is disappointed that,
after all her hard work on her own writing, only two of her songs may go
into the album. The good news, which she always finds, is that in
Nashville she has her pick of songs from some of the best songwriters in
the world. She is always gracious and grateful to all those who help her
be who she is.