Event category descriptions
Keynote panel
4:30 - 5:30 pm
Auditorium, Nebraska History Museum
This session will highlight Nebraska’s 2011 One Book One
Nebraska selection, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps,
with a focus on how this rich non-fiction description of the place
Kooser calls home in the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska has
evolved into the musical, takes us to this same home ground where,
in a circle of light, the poet’s and his wife’s journeys are
shared with the audience.
Readings by Nebraska writers
The festival committee aims to tap
into Nebraska’s rich contemporary literary talent by inviting
Nebraska authors whose books have been or will be published in
2010 to read from their works. These renowned authors and poets
will meet with area-wide lovers of books and writing. After each
reading, there will be a question and answer period to engage
the audience in a dialogue to explore the importance of the
literary arts to human understanding.
Read the writers’ bios...
- 2nd Floor Mezzanine, nuVibe Juice & Java:
- Readers #1 & #2
| 10:15 - 11:15 am
- Readers #3 & #4
| 11:30 am - 12:30 pm
- Nebraska History Museum:
- Reader #5 | 1:30 - 2:00
pm | Auditorium
- Reader #6 | 1:30 - 2:00
pm | Reading Space
- Reader #7 | 2:15 - 2:45
pm | Auditorium
- Reader #8 | 2:15 - 2:45
pm | Reading
Space
- Reader #9 | 3:00 - 3:30
pm | Auditorium
- Reader #10 | 3:00 - 3:30 pm | Reading
Space
- Reader #11 | 3:45 - 4:15
pm | Auditorium
- Reader #12 | 3:45 - 4:15 pm |
Reading Space
- Reader #13 | 3:45 - 4:15 pm |
Gilmore Room
- Reader #14 | 3:45 - 4:15 pm |
Investigation Station
Book signings
10:15 am - 12:45 pm
2nd Floor Mezzanine, nuVibe Juice & Java
1:30 - 4:30 pm & 5:30 - 6:30
pm
Lobby, Nebraska History Museum
The presenters reading from their
2010 works will be available after their sessions for book signings. Their
2010-published books will be available for sale in the Museum Shop.
Writers’ workshops
Workshops bring together aspiring
writers to learn how to craft their work from established
professionals. Through these conversations, participants enrich
their writing. There is no fee, but space is limited. Advance registration is
recommended.
Register online (see below for links) through May 15, 2011.
10:15 am - 12:15 pm
Conference Room, nuVibe Juice & Java
Register online
Timothy Schaffert is a
fourth-generation Nebraskan whose central Nebraska farm
has been in his family for seventy years. Three of his
four novels have been set in that landscape, and a sense
of place, and of the relationships that inform rural
communities, have been integral to the development of
his fiction. In this fiction-writing workshop, Timothy
will offer writing exercises and lead a discussion on
how writers use place to portray character, to further
the plot, and enhance story and theme.
Get Published Now with Jim Reese
1:30 - 3:30 pm
Gilmore Room, Nebraska History Museum
Register online
This is a hybrid
writing workshop where participants spend time
generating ideas mixed with real world methods on how to
get published in today’s market. Jim Reese is an Associate Professor of English; Director
of the Great Plains Writers’ Tour at Mount Marty College in
Yankton, South Dakota; and Editor-in-Chief of PADDLEFISH.
Reese’s poetry and prose have been widely published,
most recently in New York Quarterly, Poetry East,
Prairie Schooner,
and elsewhere. His new book ghost on 3rd
was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Jim has been the
National Endowment for the Arts’ Writer-in-Residence at
the Yankton Federal Prison Camp since 2008.
1:30 - 3:30 pm
Auditorium, Nebraska History Museum
Register online
These three poets will lead short workshops, each building
on the last to craft poems of heft, poems you could hang a
hat on, perhaps poems which won’t let the cold wind in.
Matt won the 2007 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry, is
executive director of the Nebraska Writers Collective, and
has led workshops for the U.S. State Department in Nepal and
Belarus. Dwaine won the 2010 Nebraska Book Award for
Poetry and has been the recipient of two National Endowment
for the Humanities grants in the NEH’s Summer Seminars for
Schoolteachers program (2002 and 2007). Jeff has won the
Oscar C. Macellaio Poetry Prize, recognized by the American
Academy of Poets and recently edited The Eiseley Reader
Teacher’s Guide for the Loren Eiseley Society. Between
them, they have 8 children and a ridiculous amount of
English degrees.
Mildred Bennett Award
4:25 - 4:30 pm | Auditorium, Nebraska History Museum
The Nebraska Center for the Book’s
Mildred Bennett Award recognizes an individual who has made a
significant contribution to fostering the literary tradition in
Nebraska. Its purpose is to remind us all of the literary and
intellectual traditions that enrich our lives and mold our
world. The recipient is nominated by the local book festival
committee and approved by the Nebraska Center for the Book
Board. For more information and a list of previous award
recipients, visit the Nebraska Center for the Book’s
Mildred Bennett Award information page.