About
Photo by Noah Kupcho
Katie Bruckbauer, Dancer-Poet
Author of Time to Soar: Word Dances and Bird Songs for Every Season
Katie was raised on a farm outside of Casselton, ND. She grew up in a large, faith-filled family full of kindness and compassion, safety and security, pride and perfection. Katie considers herself a recovering perfectionist, and is awakening to the idea that life is really most beautiful in its imperfections. She is practicing patience as this slow process to freedom unfolds.
As a child, she always loved to dance. Starting in ballet/jazz, she loved the opportunity to bring her athletic & musical abilities together, and eventually, found her passion in modern dance and creative movement. She shared this passion with a dance studio in the Fargo-Moorhead (ND) area for 30 years. In recent years, she has discovered the healing benefits of yoga and mindfulness; rediscovered how vital dancing is to her physical, mental and spiritual well-being; and found how writing poetry can be a healing avenue for many of life's challenges.
Katie's poetry explores the complexities, questions, hardships, joys, and beauty of life. It is influenced by her background in dance and creative movement. Katie loves to play with the symbols and sounds, rhythm and rhyme, subtleties and surprises of word in verse form. Wisdom, whimsy, and wonder flow through her, dancing on the page, joining her heart with fellow travelers on the human journey. Time to Soar: Word Dances and Bird Songs for All Seasons is her first book of poetry, and she has now choreographed dances to the poems for live performances.
Katie lives in Fargo with her husband, Mike. They have 3 adult children and live next door to their 3 grandchildren.
Mary Jo Savageau
Illustrator of Time to Soar: Word Dances and Bird Songs for Every Season
Mary Jo grew up not far from her cousin Katie. She loved art from an early age and has always been fascinated by what can emerge from lines and color on a blank piece of paper. She studied both art and English in college, and, after many years working in communications fields, she started Wide Open Skies Creative Services doing web design and consulting. She illustrated Time to Soar with a combination of watercolor paintings and digital art.
Mary Jo and her husband, John, live in Bismarck, ND, and have two daughters. Visit her site at wideopenskies.com.