Betsy Korbinyr

Award-winning author, Betsy Korbinyr is a retired social worker living in Madison, WI. Her +30 year practice included hospice, medical, mental health, and school social work. She is an avid hiker and has trekked in England, Ireland, and India, as well as in multiple states. When she's not traversing the wilds of Wisconsin and writing about it, she can be found tinkering in her garden sanctuary. Her geographically challenged brain is always on the lookout for trail markers along the journey, be it in a forest or navigating through these last years of her life.

She is licensed as a social worker by the state and also has a Certification in Thanatology (CT): Death, Dying, and Bereavement Counseling from the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC). The ADEC is the premiere worldwide organization devoted to this topic. A CT requires at least 3000 hours of professional practice in the field. The author has an additional +300 hours of professional learning regarding a myriad of aspects of this subject.

Betsy is the right person to tell this coming-of-age story because of her deep understanding of the human experience across the lifespan as related to change and loss. Also, Wisconsin is her home state and the parks have had special meaning to her for her entire life.

She could have chosen to write the kind of book similar to most travel adventures about her long hikes in foreign lands. Instead, she chose to write this book because it is an accessible story, an attainable Quest for others to pursue. It is more of a humble "you can do this" story, rather than a "I did this and aren't I amazing" story. It is decidedly unlike many travel memoirs in that regard. It is filled with a love for Wisconsin and is expressed through the lens of a traveler whose heart never truly left the beauty of a childhood spent growing up above a cheese factory and, later, on a century-old Wisconsin farm.

Betsy Korbinyr's "Time, Beauty, and Grief: A Hike Through Wisconsin's 50 State Parks" was selected by the Wisconsin Center for the Book as the 2025 Wisconsin entry in the "Great Reads from Great Places" program of the Library of Congress.