Deb started writing at age twelve when a poem about a lamb, a real tear-jerker, won her a dictionary. She has continued to write poetry through the years as well as essays, short stories, children’s books, and has just completed her memoir, IN THE LUCKY SPACES–a nurse’s memoir.

Her years in nursing with children, new mothers, hospice families and older folks, as well as teaching, parish nursing and chaplaincy have contributed to a rich life serving to enliven and deepen her work. Volunteer work at the Wisconsin Humane Society Wildlife Hospital has inspired a number of her children’s picture books.

Mrs. Manske is an active member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Six of her poems have appeared in the WFOP Calendars. Her poem “Jamming in the Monroe House Kitchen” appeared in the Bramble Literary Magazine, 2017 Fall issue and “The Kitchen is for Dancing” was in the Fall, 2018 one. Her poem, “Leave It On,” has been set to music by Fred Monthei, a Cape Cod musician. Most recently her poem “Our Daily Bread” is in the Bards Against Hunger chapbook being sold and read for the benefit of the hungry in SE Wisconsin this Spring.

Deb grew up on a farm in Iowa and raised two sons in Wisconsin. She writes from her cozy office a mile from Lake Michigan. Away from her desk, she travels and pretends to garden.