WADENA — After stepping down from her role as the executive director at the Wadena County Historical Society, Lina Belar was able to focus on her first love — poetry.
Pulling from her life experiences, Belar blends her love for nature and all its creatures in her collection of poems in her latest book titled “At the Crossroads”.
This is Belar’s second book published through Finishing Line Press, featuring poems that encompass the 81 year old’s life from her Slovenian heritage to her early life in New York City to her adopted homeland of Minnesota.
Belar said she grew up outside of New Jersey just across the river from Philadelphia. When she was 17, she moved to New York City, where she would take a variety of jobs, including working for a film company and as a bricklayer for a construction company. In her mid 20s, Belar made her way to northern Minnesota, where she would fall in love with the beauty of nature and all its creatures.
Nicole Stracek / Wadena Pioneer Journal
With her love of nature as inspiration, Belar said her writing encompasses a little bit of everything.
“They’re about basically my life, the people I know, places I know, the nature I know, and what I like sometimes is writing something that shows how I see it, you know,” Belar said.
Belar is also the featured author for the month of July at Green Island Nature Preserves’ Poetry Walk, where the public is invited to wander through the forest reading poems that are displayed along the walking paths. Green Island is located off of Highway 71 in Wadena and is owned by Kent Scheer and Vicki Chepulis. Being involved with the Poetry Walk event is something Belar said she holds dear to her heart.
“I’ve been working with Kent to help develop more things, and he actually got the idea of putting the poetry walk up there,” Belar. said “It’s so exciting and such a great event. I mean I can’t say enough good things about Vicki and Kent. Green Island is just a treasure, a real treasure.”
Belar has been featured in Talking Stick, Lake Region Review and Northern Lights Library Network’s Poets Across Minnesota. She received the first prize poetry award at the Brainerd Writer’s Alliance Festival in 2017 the same year her first book, “Rural Score”, was published.
While serving as the executive director of the Wadena County Historical Society, Belar was instrumental in bringing poetry to the region through Minnesota Voices, a poetry contest that features Minnesota writer’s and their work. Minnesota Voices is something that Belar plans to continue.
For more information and to get a copy of her latest book “At the Crossroads” visit
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Nicole Stracek was a freelance writer for over 10 years before joining the Wadena Pioneer Journal. She covers everything from city council and county board meetings to breaking news. The community reporter can be reached at 218-631-2561 or nstracek@wadenapj.com.
