2024 Festival Authors & Programs
Trivia Night
Friday, October 11th, 5:30pm. Join us for a pre-festival event at White Elm Brewing's Tap Room (720 Van Dorn St., Lincoln, NE.) This event will feature Nebraska themed book, author, and literary trivia and $4 pints for triva participants.
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Zero Street Fiction
Zero Street is committed to LGBTQ+ literary fiction with commercial potential, providing marginalized authors opportunities for a wide readership in the trade fiction market. The series editors are Timothy Schaffert, bestselling author of The Perfume Thief, and SJ Sindu, author of Blue-Skinned Gods. The series seeks LGBTQ+ literary fiction of all kinds, from stories of modern life to innovations on traditions of genre and are particularly interested in BIPOC authors, trans authors, and queer authors over 50. Current selections include: All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere: Stories by Dr. DeMisty D. Bellinger, I Make Envy on Your Disco: A Novel by Eric Schnall, and Forget I Told You This: A Novel by Hilary Zaid. Submissions to the series are accepted annually November 1–April 1. Learn more...
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This panel will feature:
Timothy Schaffert
Timothy Schaffert is the author of seven
novels: The Titanic Survivors Book Club, The Perfume Thief, The Swan Gondola, The Coffins of Little Hope, Devils in the Sugar Shop, The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God, and The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters.
He is the Adele Hall Chair of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and coeditor of Zero Street, a literary fiction series of the University of Nebraska Press.
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DeMisty D. Bellinger
DeMisty D. Bellinger is the author of
two novels All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere:
Stories and New to Liberty, she also has two published collections of poetry,
Peculiar Heritage and Rubbing Elbows. She is an associate professor of English and coordinator of the Center of Faculty Scholarship at
Fitchburg State University. Learn more...
20 Years of One Book One Nebraska
The One Book One Nebraska program, which began in 2005, encourages Nebraskans to read and discuss a selected book each year.
The book is either written by a Nebraska author or has a Nebraska theme or setting. A committee from the Nebraska Center for the Book chooses the book from nominations submitted by Nebraskans.
Libraries across the state organize book discussions, activities, and events to foster community engagement with literature. This initiative celebrates Nebraska’s literary heritage and promotes reading and dialogue among residents.
One Book One Nebraska is sponsored by Nebraska Center for the Book, Humanities Nebraska, and Nebraska Library Commission.
This panel of authors will feature past One Book One Nebraska (OBON) authors sharing their unique experiences and thoughts on the OBON program.
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This panel will feature:
Karen Gettert Shoemaker
Karen Gettert Shoemaker is the author of the novel The Meaning of Names (Red Hen Press, 2014), the One Book One Nebraska selection for 2016 and Omaha Reads selection for 2014. She is also the author of the award-winning collection of short stories,
Night Sounds and Other Stories. Her fiction and poetry have been published in a variety of newspapers and journals. Her work has been anthologized in A Different Plain: Contemporary Nebraska Fiction Writers;
Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Poetry; Times of Sorrow/Times of Grace; and An Untidy Season.
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James J. Kimble
James J. Kimble is the author of the novel Prairie Forge: The Extraordinary Story of the Nebraska Scrap Metal Drive of World War II (Bison Books, 2014), the One Book One Nebraska
selection for 2021. He is Professor of Communication & the Arts at Seton Hall University and is an expert on domestic propaganda, war rhetoric, and visual imagery.
His research on the World War II era has reached a worldwide media audience of over 1.2 billion people in more than a dozen languages, and he is the founding
editor of the academic journal Home Front Studies. He is the author of Mobilizing the Home Front: War Bonds and Domestic Propaganda as well as the writer and co-producer of the movie documentary Scrappers: How the
Heartland Won World War II. His most recent book, co-edited with Trischa Goodnow, is called The 10¢ War: Comic Books, Propaganda, and World War II.
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Joe Starita is the author of the novel "I Am a Man" - Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice (St. Martin's Press, 2009), the One Book One Nebraska
selection for 2012 and the One Book One Lincoln selection for 2011. He was an investigative reporter in New York and Miami for 15 years before joining the UNL College of Journalism, where he taught depth
reporting for 20 years. A two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, the Lincoln native has won more than 25 national and regional awards for his reporting. Starita also is
the author of two other acclaimed books on Native Americans: The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge – a Lakota Odyssey and A Warrior of the People:
How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America’s First Indian Doctor. Starita’s biography of Chief Standing Bear is being
made into a full-length feature film. Learn more...
Mary K. Stillwell co-edited Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Nebraska Poetry (The Backwaters Press, 2007) the One Book One Nebraska
selection for 2018, with Greg Kosmicki. She has studied with William Packard and Erica Jong in New York and Ted Kooser and Hilda Raz on the plains. She
earned her PhD in plains literature from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her poems and criticism has appeared in The Paris Review, The Massachusetts Review,
Prairie Schooner, Midwest Quarterly, South Dakota Review, The New York Quarterly, Midwest Quarterly, Book of Re-reading of Recent American Poetry II,
Women’s Studies, More in Time, and numerous anthologies. Most recently, her poem, Open Door, Green and Pine, was published in the spring 2023 issue of
Prairie Schooner. She is the author of The Life and Poetry of Ted Kooser, published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2013. Her books include
Reasonable Doubts (Finishing Line Press, 2020), Maps & Destinations (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2018), Fallen Angels (Finishing Line Press, 2013),
and Moving to Malibu (Sandhills Press, 1990). Stillwell is a native Nebraskan. She was raised in Omaha and on a farm in southeast Nebraska. Parents of two
adult children, Stillwell and her partner, Frank Edler, live in Lincoln.
Learn more... The Nebraska Writers Collective
is committed to fostering self-empowerment and building community through creative writing and performance poetry. This SLAM Poetry showcase performance will
feature Nebraska Writer Collective poets Sam Lee, Joanna Calel, Riley
Westerholt, and Bianca Swift.... Learn more... This panel will feature: Join us for a Memoir Writing Workshop
facilitated by teachers from the Larksong Writers Place. The 2024 One Book One Nebraska selection
Dancing with the Octopus: A Memoir of a Crime is a memoir of native Nebraskan, Debora Harding, all about a traumatic childhood event, the aftereffects of which would change her family forever.
Larksong Writer Place is a growing group of writers and teachers dedicated to inspiring people to create a better world through
prose, poetry, and storytelling. Our team includes award-winning authors and experienced teachers skilled in the craft of writing.
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This workshop will be
facilitated by: Lucy Adkins is a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Two of
her poetry collections, Two-Toned Dress and A Crazy Little Thing were named winners of Nebraska Book Awards for Poetry in 2021 and 2023. She is
also a writer of fiction as well as co-author of Writing in Community and The Fire Inside, books of encouragement and inspiration for writers.
For many years, she has served as a writing group and workshop leader, and was named co-winner of the Lincoln 2020 Mayors Arts Award for
Excellence in the Literary Arts. Her MFA in Creative Writing is from the University of Nebraska at Omaha..
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The Nebraska Book Awards program, sponsored by the Nebraska Center for the Book (NCB),
recognizes and honors books that are written by Nebraska authors, published by Nebraska publishers, set in Nebraska, or concerning Nebraska. The
Nebraska Book Award Author Roundtable panel will feature authors who received one of this year's awards.
They will also be able to make a short speech when they recieve their
award on stage in the Auditorium. This panel will feature:
Allison L. Bitz is the winner of the Teen Novel Award with her debut novel, The Unstoppable Bridget Bloom.
She hails from Lincoln, NE, where she lives with her spouse and two kids. Her superpower is empathy, and she’s been known to have resting
tell-me-your-life-story face. Allison holds a PhD in Counseling Psychology and has worked as a licensed psychologist since 2012. When she’s not working on a
novel or counseling, Allison is more than likely writing a song, getting riled up about something political, or trying to track down a pastry to enjoy with
her coffee. She has a soft spot for rescue animals, which are vying for species majority in her home (two perfect dogs, two ornery cats).
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Carla Ketner is the winner of the Children's Picture Book Award with her debut picture book, Ted Kooser: More than a Local Wonder,
which released in October 2023 and won an MIPA Midwest Book Award and the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People. She is the owner and manager of
Chapters Books & Gifts in Seward, Nebraska. She is a former elementary school teacher and instructor of college-level children's literature courses.
When not reading, writing or connecting readers with books, she is likely to be walking her grand-dog, looking up the names of local wildflowers, baking
anything that lists chocolate as an ingredient, or traveling with friends and family.
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Jacob K. Friefeld is the winner of the Nonfiction History Award with Richard Edwards, with their book The First Migrants: How Black
Homesteaders’ Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America’s Great Migration, which tells the epic story of Black Americans homesteading in
the Great Plains after the Civil War. Along with winning a Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction History, The First Migrants was a finalist for
the Association for the Study of African American Life and History book award, the Western Writers of America book award for history, and received an
honorable mention for the Midwestern History Association's Jon Gjerde prize. He is the Director of the Center for Lincoln Studies at the University of
Illinois Springfield. His previous book, Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History, examines the Homestead Act of 1862, one of the most
important social policies ever enacted in the United States. Friefeld has a passion for making history accessible for broad audiences through his writing,
public speaking, teaching, and work with museums.
Dana Fritz is the winner of the Nonfiction Nebraska as Place Award, with her book Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape.
Through photographic books, prints, and exhibitions Fritz explores how we shape and represent the land, engaging ideas about climate change, environmental
history, and ecology in a place-based practice. Fritz’s work has been exhibited widely across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her prints and artist books
are in public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), Scottsdale Museum of
Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston Hirsch Library, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Centro de Iniciativas Culturales de la Universidad de
Sevilla, Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and Nevada Museum of Art’s Center for Art + Environment Archive. In addition to several
self-published limited edition artist books, she published Terraria Gigantica: The World under Glass with University of New Mexico Press in 2017 and
Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape with University of Nebraska Press in 2023. Fritz is Hixson-Lied Professor of Art and a Center for Great Plains
Studies Fellow at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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Jennifer D. James is the winner of the Cover and Design Award with
her debut memoir, Feisty Righty: A Cancer Survivor’s Journey. She is a multi-award-winning author,
cancer survivor, trained breast cancer mentor through the American Cancer Society, certified meditation teacher specializing in patient healing and
pain management, certified Maurer Foundation breast health educator, and advocate for individuals diagnosed with cancer to help them gain necessary resources.
In her memoir, she hopes to open the conversation about cancer to shift the narrative and empower women worldwide. Learn more...
Julie S. Paschold (Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle) is the winner of the Design Honor Award
with their poetry book, Horizons (Atmosphere Press),
which honors soil. They are a poet, artist, and agronomist from Nebraska and their next book You Have Always Been Here (Bass Clef Books) is forthcoming in
late 2024. They were a semi-finalist in the Kate Sommers Memorial Prize, and won honorable mention in two Writer's Digest chapbook contests. They are a published
book for the Human Library Organization. Learn more...
Romeo Oriogun is the winner of the Poetry Award with his poetry book The Gathering of Bastards (University of Nebraska Press, 2023).
He was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and now lives in Iowa. He is the author of Sacrament of Bodies (Nebraska, 2020) and Nomad.
Carolina Hotchandani is the winner of the Poetry Honor Award with her poetry book The Book Eaters, the 2023 Perugia Press Prize Winner
and one of ten debut poetry books featured in Poets & Writers Magazine’s 2024 debut poets issue. She was awarded a Nebraska Arts Council Individual
Fellowship, and her poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, and various other literary magazines. She is a Goodrich Assistant
Professor of English in Omaha, Nebraska. Learn more...
Joe Starita
Mary K. Stillwell
Nebraska Writers Collective - Slam Poetry Showcase
Sam Lee
Joanna Calel
Bianca Swift
Larksong Writer Place - Memoir Writing Workshop
Lucy Adkins
Nebraska Book Awards
Allison L. Bitz
Carla Ketner
Jacob K. Friefeld
Dana Fritz
Jennifer D. James
Julie S. Paschold
Romeo Oriogun
Carolina Hotchandani
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