Valerie Kingsmill

Valerie was born in Kent, England during the Second World War, where she lived in a mostly rural area until her family emigrated to Australia when she was twelve. In 1973, she took a vacation in Canada and fell in love with that country. She has lived there ever since, mostly on the Canadian prairies near Redberry Lake, northwest of Saskatoon. The author has been a restauranteur (Emmett's Tea Rooms) and the owner of the Shearwater riverboats which have worked the river in Saskatoon since 1996. In 2012, she retired from the business and returned to her early passion: painting and writing about the prairies, Redberry Lake, and the creatures (real and imagined) who live there (she is also the author and illustrator of the Redberry Tales series of story books for young children). Valerie maintains her studio in Hafford (east of North Battleford); she works mostly in oil, but has done a number of pieces in pen and ink.