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About Michael

Baltimore County

I am a literary artist, working in fiction and nonfiction. Though I've lived all over the country, I've called Baltimore home since 2007, living first in the city and for the last two years just across the city line in Baltimore County.

I've authored three books and published individual stories and essays in some of the country's top literary journals including Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Missouri Review, Southern Review, and Georgia Review. A one-time newspaper reporter, I shifted… more

View Michael's Resume
Jump to a project:

FLASH NONFICTION: Isn't It Fun How We Shine?

ISN'T IT FUN HOW WE SHINE? is a collection of flash nonfictions, made possible in part by a Rubys Artist Project grant. The Rubys were conceived and initiated with start-up funding from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation and are a program of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance. Several of the flash essays will appear this winter in The Southern Review. Others have already appeared at Sport Literate and at Literary Hub. With more than 50 written, I plan to turn them into a limited-run podcast.




  • The Morning After His Family Buried Freddie Gray
    The Morning After His Family Buried Freddie Gray
    This essay was part of a collection by Baltimore authors following the Baltimore Uprising. The essays were solicited by the journal American Short Fiction.
  • Double Play, from Sport Literate
    "Double Play" was one of the first flash essays I wrote as part of the project, ISN'T IT FUN HOW WE SHINE? It was originally published in the journal, Sport Literate.
  • The Morning After: Podcast
    This is the recorded version of "The Morning After His Family Buried Freddie Gray," read by the author. Copyright Michael Downs, 2016.
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    • FICTION: The Greatest Show

    THE GREATEST SHOW: STORIES, a collection of ten linked short stories published by Louisiana State University Press. Three of the stories received special commendation in the Best American Short Stories series as "distinguished stories."

    THE BOOK
    Fire sweeps along the wall of a circus tent while inside thousands of people enjoy a Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey matinee. Within minutes, flames consume the canvas and vast sections collapse, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more.

    Inspired by the 1944 Hartford Circus Fire, the interconnected stories in Michael Downs's The Greatest Show explore how kindness and time work in the aftermath of disaster.

    • Greatest_Baker.jpeg
      Greatest_Baker.jpeg
      The book cover for "The Greatest Show: Stories," published by Louisiana State University Press as part of its Yellow Shoe Fiction series. The cover was designed by Laura Gleason.
    • ania.pdf
      The story "Ania," first published in The Georgia Review, opens the collection "The Greatest Show."
    • Foreword Magazine reviews THE GREATEST SHOW
      This review of THE GREATEST SHOW from Foreword magazine calls the book, "an auspicious fiction debut."