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DEB CARPENTER — a poet, fiction writer, and songwriter — is the author of Nature's Beauty Kit (Fulcrum, 1995). She has received an Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the Nebraska Arts Council for Literature (fiction) and one for Performing Arts (Composition). Her first album, Welcome to the North Star Hotel, was released in 1995. She has performed original songs at cowboy poetry gatherings across the West, has been a featured artist on "Dakota Folk" (South Dakota Public Radio), and has sung her popular catfish song on the nationally syndicated television talk show "Vicki!" She appears with Lyn DeNaeyer Messersmith on a CD called The Heart's Compass, presenting music and poetry in the voices of pioneer women. The book and CD are available through the Nebraska Humanities Council and the Nebraska Art Council. She lives in rural northwestern Nebraska with her husband and two daughters, teaching writing and reading classes at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Her husband, Dan, works with Deb's dad on the Wellnitz Elk and Cattle Ranch.