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Brenda Schmidt

Brenda Schmidt is a naturalist and visual artist living in Creighton, a mining town on the Canadian Shield in northern Saskatchewan, where she explores creative paths between the natural and digital worlds. Author of four books of poetry and a book of essays, her work has been published, performed, shown and broadcast across Canada and was part of a poetry installation at the University of Exeter (UK). As a board member, editor, manuscript evaluator, writer-in-residence, workshop leader, panelist, juror, and reviewer of fiction, poetry and nonfiction for Quill & Quire, Brenda has been actively involved in various writing communities of the region, province, and nation. In 2016, she founded the Ore Samples Writers Series, working with local writers, community partners, and corporate sponsors to bring professional writers north to engage with people in the Creighton-Flin Flon area.

Brenda grew up on a farm in the Coteau Hills of Saskatchewan, in the midst of an internationally recognized important bird migration route. A former registered nurse, she also has a BA, English, from the University of Waterloo. While living in the north, she worked for a time as a freelance reporter and photographer, wrote a birding column and volunteered in a recycling centre. Brenda's writing and painting processes have always been closely linked. Her paintings hung in solo and group exhibitions in Saskatchewan and Manitoba in the 1990s. Lately she’s been focussing on bringing poetry into digital and multimedia work. Much of the work comes out of road trips and time spent wandering down the backroads. A birder and long-time member of Nature Saskatchewan, she’s been actively involved in citizen science projects for many years. She’s been the compiler for the annual Creighton Christmas Bird Count since its inception and is one of the volunteers who stand in the dark each spring listening for owls for the Saskatchewan Nocturnal Owl Survey.