Alumni authors crowd the shelves
Photo by Mareca Guthrie
Linda Schandelmeier answers a reader’s question during a book-signing event in the Wood Center multilevel lounge.
Photo by Mareca Guthrie
Linda Schandelmeier attends a reception during the book festival at the Rasmuson Library.
Linda Schandelmeier
Linda Schandelmeier has been honored for her poetry with a variety of awards, fellowships and prizes, including the Fejes Award. Her poems have served as the basis for a number of song cycles, one of which was performed in Carnegie Hall. Not bad for a science major.
Although she earned a bachelor of science degree in from ÎÞÂëÂÒÂ× and an education certificate 20 years later, her writing career came about mostly by association with writers. While an undergraduate, Schandelmeier was intrigued by a writer’s workshop her boyfriend was attending. She listened in and was inspired to begin writing poetry.
"Eventually I went on to win the ÎÞÂëÂÒÂ×-sponsored Midnight Sun Poetry Prize, and I continue to be a member of a local writing group," Schandelmeier said.
Teaching is Schandelmeier’s mainstay these days, and she’s won recognition there, too, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Elementary Science Teaching, and a BP Teachers of Excellence nomination.
Listening Hard Among the Birches, her first book of poetry, draws on her love of nature with a scientist’s eye for detail.