Watch a recording of this event:
READING AND CONVERSATION SERIES: LINDA SCHANDELMEIER
Recorded: Thursday, February 16 2023 | 6-7 PM
Via Zoom
Linda Schandelmeier is a poet from Fairbanks, Alaska. She was raised on a 160-acre homestead outside of Anchorage, Alaska, where she spent much of her childhood exploring the outdoors. She moved to Fairbanks in 1967 to attend the University of Alaska where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, and later a teaching certificate.
Her poetry has been awarded numerous prizes and distinctions, including an artist-in-residence at Denali National Park, an Individual Artist Project Award from the Rasmuson Foundation, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, and the Midnight Sun, Fejes, and Anchorage Daily News-UAA prizes for poetry. Her poems have been set to music by Composer Corey Field and performed in Carnegie Hall and elsewhere.
She is the author of two poetry collections, Listening Hard Among the Birches, published by Vanessapress in 2002, and Coming Out of Nowhere, published by the University of Alaska Press in 2018. Coming Out of Nowhere won the 2019 Willa Award from Women Writing the West. This nationally recognized award honors the best poetry book each year featuring women or girl’s stories set in the West.
Linda’s poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Alaska Quarterly Review, The Northern Review, Cirque, Ice-Floe, permafrost, Red Cedar Review, The Last New Land, Hunger and Dreams, and Connecticut River Review.
Linda taught creative writing at the Fairbanks Correctional Center for over 8 years, and sixth grade for the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. In 2000 she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Elementary Science Teaching, a national award.
In 2018 , Linda was awarded the Power to the Polls, Pillars of Progress Award from the Alaska Women’s Lobby for her decades long political work to support progressive candidates and mentor young activists.
In addition to her love for poetry, Linda and her husband, John Davies are avid gardeners. They live near Fairbanks, Alaska.