Nebraska Book Festival 2012

 

 

View the SCHEDULE [PDF]

View the MAP

View the list of PRESENTERS [PDF]

Info for EXHIBITORS AND VENDORS [PDF]

For more information:

Matt Mason, Festival Coordinator
Phone: 402-453-5711
E-mail:
mtmason(at)gmail.com

The Nebraska Book Festival is supported by Nebraska Center for the Book, Nebraska Humanities Council, Nebraska Library Commission, Nebraska State Historical Society, University of Nebraska Press, and nuVibe Juice and Java.

The next Nebraska Book Festival, Believing in Nebraska Writers,  will be held April 5 - 6, 2013, at the UNO Thompson Alumni Center in Omaha, NE. The Festival will feature Kurt Andersen as the Keynote on the evening of April 5 and a Louder Than a Bomb: Omaha youth poetry bout on the evening of April 6. 

Join us!

On Saturday, March 31, 2012, the Nebraska Center for the Book (NCB) will host the 2012 Nebraska Book Festival at nuVibe Juice and Java, 126 North 14th Street, and the Nebraska State Historical Society's Nebraska History Museum, 131 Centennial Mall North (15th and P Streets), in downtown Lincoln. This event is free and open to the public and will focus on Nebraska authors who published new works © 2011. View the schedule [PDF]. View the list of presenters and workshop facilitators [PDF].

  • Ron Hansen will give the keynote presentation.
  • Participating authors will answer questions from the audience, be available for book signings, and attend the concluding reception.
  • Writers will conduct writers workshops.
  • The Nebraska Center for the Book will present the Mildred Bennett Award to an individual for significant contributions to fostering literary tradition in Nebraska [learn more about the award].
  • Joe Starita will discuss the 2012 One Book One Nebraska "I Am a Man:" Chief Standing Bear's Journey for Justice [learn more about this year's reading program].
  • Organizations, publishers and vendors will be present. March 15 is the deadline to reserve a table at the 2012 Nebraska Book Festival [learn more].
  • There will be evening readings at nuVibe.

The keynote presentation will be offered by novelist Ron Hansen, author of A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion. Born in Omaha, Hansen earned his B.A. in English from Creighton University, M.F.A. in creative writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and M.A. in Spirituality from Santa Clara University in California. He is the Gerard Manley Hopkins Professor of Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara, where he teaches writing and literature.

Readings, question and answer sessions, and book signings will highlight the following Nebraska writers:

  • Paul Dickey, poet, They Say This Is How Death Came Into the World
  • Ron Hansen, novelist, A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion
  • Twyla Hansen, poet, Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet
  • Neil Harrison, poet, Back in the Animal Kingdom
  • Allison Hedge Coke, poet and editor, Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas
  • David Philip Mullins, fiction, Greetings From Below
  • Frank O'Neal, poet, Fireside Chats: A Surrealist's View of the World
  • Ferial Pearson and Omaha South High students, anthology of personal essays, In My Shoes: Teen Reflections on Hope and the Future
  • Amy Plettner, poet, Undoing Orion's Belt
  • Rainbow Rowell, novelist and columnist, Attachments
  • Lisa Sandlin, non-fiction, You Who Made the Sky Bend: Saints as Archetypes of the Human Condition
  • Brent Spencer, creative non-fiction, Rattlesnake Daddy: A Son's Search for His Father
  • Joe Starita, non-fiction, "I Am a Man:" Chief Standing Bear's Journey for Justice
  • William G. Thomas, non-fiction, The Iron Way: Railroads, the Civil War, and the Making of Modern America
  • William Trowbridge, poet, Ship of Fool

Free writing workshops offer opportunities to discuss writing techniques, share experiences, and receive expert feedback:

William Trowbridge will lead the poetry writing workshop. Trowbridge's poetry explores the contemporary "Fool" with humor and reflection. (9 - 10:20 am at nuVibe; arrive early to begin promptly at 9 am)

Lisa Knopp will lead the creative non-fiction writing workshop. Knopp's What the River Carries includes essays about the Mississippi, Missouri and Platte rivers and contemplates how people experience landscape. (9 - 10:20 am at nuVibe; arrive early to begin promptly at 9 am)

For more information and to register for the workshops: contact Mary Ellen Ducey by e-mail, archives (at) unl.edu, or by phone, 402-472-5076. Registration deadline is March 23.

The festival will conclude with a reception at the Museum of Nebraska History and an evening of readings at nuVibe Juice and Java. Readings by some of the 66 Nebraska poets who were included in a Nebraska issue of "The Midwest Quarterly" in 2011 were arranged by Mark Sanders, and the event will be hosted by Matt Mason. We invite you to join us March 31, 2012.

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