Born and raised in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, poet and editor Barbara Schmitz earned a BA at Wayne State College and an MA at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her lyric free verse engages personal and spiritual journeys, and her poetry collections include How to Get Out of the Body (1999) and Nebraska Center for the Book Poetry Award–winner How Much Our Dancing Has Improved (2005).

Schmitz’s poetry has been featured in the anthologies The Plains Sense of Things: Eight Poets from Outstate Nebraska (1997), The Decade Dance (1991), and All My Grandmothers Could Sing (1980). Her honors include a grant from the Nebraska Arts Council and a residency at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos.

Former editor of Elkhorn Review, she is professor emerita at Northeast Community College. She teaches writing at the Caravan of the Beautiful, a center for spirituality.