About Me

Hello & Welcome!

My path as a storyteller started early. When I was eight years old, my aunt gave me a diary, and by twelve, my uncle handed me a secondhand 35mm camera. I was hooked. By my late teens in the late 1980s and early 1990s, my photography and writing were being published in the Syracuse Newspapers working in newsrooms alongside adult professionals before I even started college.

I went on to study at SUNY Brockport from 1991 to 1995—learning under the late poet and professor Dr. Anthony Piccione https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Piccione and finishing my final semester abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1996, I began writing my Morning Pages from The Artist's Way, a daily discipline I have kept unbroken every single morning since.

Creative Roots & Community

For almost my entire adult life, I’ve worked in the non-profit sector. At age 23, working at the Syracuse Real Food Co-op fundamentally shaped my belief in community independence and alternatives to corporate systems. It’s also where I met the late Jolie Rickman, and performing music with her remains one of my most cherished memories.

In 2017, I earned a Master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling, worked as a district-wide daily substitute teacher in Syracuse City Schools, and worked one-on-one with young people with disabilities through local non-profit agencies. I am a musician and signer and performing alongside the late, Jolie Rickman https://www.facebook.com/Jolie.C.Rickman/ in 1997 remains one of my favorite musical memories. My love for the performing arts also took me to the stage, from doing theater and stage work in Boulder, Colorado, in the late 1990s, to diving into improv comedy at Syracuse's Red House in 2008. https://theredhouse.org/  I also ventured onto a film set as the Script Supervisor for Nathan Faudree's award-winning indie feature, https://www.facebook.com/Site13themovie/ I also love painting—an art form forever tied to one of my dearest friends, a painter who changed how I saw the world before he took his own life in October 2000.

The Reality Behind the Journey: Grief, Chronic Pain, and Resilience

Who I am today—and how I travel—is inseparable from the physical and emotional challenges I live with.

In 2010, during a period of immense family stress—caring for my beloved grandmother before we lost her to colon cancer, navigating my niece’s complex medical journey with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, and facing my father's prostate cancer diagnosis—I began experiencing severe pain. It went uncaught by doctors for six months until a nurse practitioner finally identified a terrible case of shingles. By then, the nerve damage was permanent.

That delayed diagnosis altered the entire course of my life. It required three surgeries to my dominant arm, a C3–C4 spinal surgery, and forced me to give up drumming—a heartbreaking creative loss. A few years later, between late 2015 and early 2016, I faced a life-altering cancer scare involving two suspicious masses near my right ovary. My surgeon told me they looked "more suspicious than most," and I joke that I pictured them wearing trench coats and sunglasses.

Today, I navigate the world with permanent nerve pain and ulcerative colitis. I share this because I believe in being honest about chronic illness. Traveling solo and off-grid doesn't mean I'm cured or skipping through the wilderness; it means I am choosing to experience the world while managing real, daily physical limits.

What’s Next

I am querying literary agents for my first completed novel, and sharing and selling my photography right here on this site. I'll also be blogging about the unfiltered reality of life—both creative adventures and the days where chronic pain sets the schedule.

I see life as beautifully fragile, at times exquisitely painful, jaw dropping in it's magnificent splendor, and of course unpredictable. 

This website will serve as my digital basecamp. I’ll be sharing regular updates, photography, and written reflections right here, as well as linking my upcoming YouTube videos so you can follow the journey.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I'd love to connect!

You can reach me at brenda.a.owens@gmail.com or follow me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/brenda.a.owens/