As the first-born daughter of a big band canary, Faith A. Colburn has unique insights into the backstage lives of those women who sang for their supper during some very hard times. From her mother, she heard some of the most beloved music of the 20th Century.

Her other half, a combat veteran and farmer, provided some very different perspectives and, as one can imagine, the two halves struggled to make a whole family. Colburn spent a lot of a time with her grandmother while her parents adjusted their lifestyles.

With Grandma, she walked the prairies, learning about plants like Spanish bayonet and buffalo beans, as well as animals like mud puppies and jackrabbits. As a public information officer for the state Game and Parks Commission, she canoed the Dismal, rode the Sandhills on horseback following champion trial dogs, cross country skied the Missouri bluffs, seined carp, fixed nets, picked trout eggs, and camped out along Bone Creek. She has photographed wildlife, from Sandhill cranes to elk and, tramping the prairies, she gained intimate knowledge of the landscape that often appears as a character or catalyst in her work. She says that her grandparents’ neighborhood and their families have served her well as a pattern for the way families and communities work when they work well. When she writes about them, she attempts to imagine a future, however distant, that’s free of hate.

“We can’t create what we can’t imagine,” she says, “so I try to imagine an evolved world where we’ve learned to get along.” 

She earned Master of Arts degrees in creative writing and in journalism from the University of Nebraska. She received University of Nebraska in Kearney’s Outstanding Thesis Award in the College of Fine Arts and Humanities in 2012 and the Outstanding Work in Fiction Award during its 2009 student conference. She also earned several awards from the Nebraska Federation of Press Women. Her fiction has appeared in Kinesis and Platte Valley Review, and her poetry has been published in The Reynolds Review. While at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, she wrote numerous articles for NEBRASKAland magazine, including copy for photo essays and historical articles.

She has independently published two memoirs--Threshold and From Picas to Bytes--and a collection of short essays--Prairie Landscapes--and is about to release a novel entitled The Reluctant Canary Sings.