Howard Schaap grew up on a farm in southwest Minnesota above Champepadan Creek, one of his earliest teachers. Told by his father that he would not farm, he attended Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, then returned home to teach at the high school from which he graduated and married his high school sweetheart, Keodouangsy (Sy) Nonginthirath. The cross-cultural nature of their marriage is a primary source of his education.
After a somewhat unsuccessful stint as a high school basketball coach, Schaap got an MA in English Literature from South Dakota State University. He began teaching at Dordt University in 2008. In 2014, he earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Seattle Pacific University. He and Sy have raised three children, and he continues to fish the shallow lakes of his youth and hunt pheasants on the old farm.
His work appears in Reformed Journal, In All Things, Pro Rege, The Other Journal and in the collection Voices for the Land, which won a Minnesota Book Award. Brooding Upon the Waters is his first book.
