The Process of a Poet with Linda Schandelmeier

Linda Schandelmeier grew up on a family homestead six miles south of Anchorage in the 1950s and 60s. She moved north in 1967 to attend the University of Alaska. Her collection of poems, Coming Out of Nowhere is part memoir and part historical document. The poems celebrate the unique and nurturing aspects of homestead life, but do not shy away from unpleasant family details. Linda has one other collection, Listening Hard Among the Birches. Her poetry has been awarded numerous prizes and distinctions, including an Artist-in-Residence at Denali National Park in 2012, a Rasmuson Individual Artist Project Award in 2006, and an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the Alaska State Council on the Arts in 1984. She is the winner of the Midnight Sun, Fejés, and Anchorage Daily News-UAA prizes for poetry. Linda’s poems have been set to music in three song cycles, one of which, Poem Against the Cold, by British composer Corey Field, was performed at Carnegie Hall. A retired biologist and elementary school teacher, and an active master gardener and political activist, Linda lives near Fairbanks, Alaska.