About Brenda

I was born on a farm in the Red River Valley of eastern North Dakota, and grew up climbing trees, riding my pony, and daydreaming under a wide prairie sky. I left North Dakota after college, and have since lived in Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa, Washington, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and for the past sixteen years, Michigan. I have a Ph.D. in English, and teach part-time in the English Department at the University of Michigan.

My first novel, Mavis, was published in 1996 (Fawcett-Columbine), and my second novel, Dakota, Or What’s a Heaven For, was published in November 2010 (North Dakota State University Institute for Regional Studies). I also have published a book of scholarship, Teaching the Postmodern: Fiction and Theory (Routledge, 1992).

My (unlawfully wedded) spouse of twenty-six years, Valerie, and I live in the country near Ann Arbor, with two horses, two dogs, and one cat. When not writing or teaching, I might be trying to improve my woodworking skills, riding horse, working in my vegetable garden, helping out in Valerie’s huge perennial garden, reading, exercising at the gym, listening to opera, or planning trips, some of which I actually take. No matter where I am living or what I am doing, I think of myself as a North Dakotan.