2025 Festival Authors & Programs
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| White Elm Brewing Trivia Night |
Nebraska Book Awards |
Larksong Writers Place |
One Book One Nebraska |
Trivia Night
Friday, November 14th, 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 trivia participants.
Nebraska Book Awards Author
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.
Join for two panels where the authors will discuss their winning books.
This panel will feature:
Alison Pearce Stevens
Alison Pearce Stevens is the winner of the Cover/Illustration Award with Animal Climate Heroes!.
She has been chased by a trumpeter swan, bitten by a bronze-winged duck, and served as a climbing wall for geckos and baby bats. She used to be a beekeeper and still
thinks pollinators are some of the coolest things on the planet. Once upon a time, she was Dr. Stevens, science professor, until life took her overseas, at which point
she started writing about science and nature for kids, because she had to find new ways to share cool things with the world’s most curious people. Now a multi-award-winning
author, all of Alison's work is inspired by a love of science and nature. She a regular contributor to Science News Explores, Highlights for Children, ASK, and other kids’
magazines, and has co-authored four books for National Geographic Kids. Rhinos in Nebraska: The Amazing Discovery of the Ashfall Fossil Beds, Animal Climate Heroes, and
Detective Dogs were Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections. Rhinos won three Nebraska Book Awards, and Animal Climate Heroes was listed as a Bank Street Best
Children’s Book for ages 9 to 12.
Learn more...
Drew Davies
Drew Davies is one of the winners of the Design Award as one of the editors of Creative Genius: The Art of the Nebraska Capitol.
He is the founder of Oxide, a civic-minded brand and design consultancy established in 2001. Under his leadership, Oxide has designed internationally
award-winning brands, logos, posters, packaging, and books. Drew has designed ballots, voter registration forms, and voter information materials for
states across the U.S., from California to New York. He developed national ballot design standards for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and
collaborated with the Federal Voting Assistance Program to enhance the registration and voting process for U.S. citizens abroad. In partnership with
the Center for Civic Design, Drew designed the Field Guides to Ensuring Voter Intent, which were featured in the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
He also testified before President Obama’s Presidential Commission on Election Administration, and remains actively involved in implementing best practices
for election and ballot design nationwide.
Learn more...
D. D. Davenport
Don Davenport is the winner of the Fiction Award with his novel, Isamu's American Dream.
He was born in Custer County, Nebraska, attended public schools in Callaway, and later graduated from Shelton High School and the
University of Nebraska at Kearney. A lifelong learner, he also attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Metropolitan Community College
of Omaha. During his career as an IT specialist, Don commuted for extended periods to Worcester, MA, Houston, and San Antonio, TX. He currently
resides in Omaha with his wife, Marian. The story of Toshi’s family was seven years in the making. It is a story of inspiration meant to reflect
the difficulties each of us encounters at times in our lives.
Gail Shaffer Blankenau is the winner of the Nonfiction Hitsory Award with her book Journey to Freedom: Uncovering the Grayson Sisters’ Escape from Nebraska Territory.
Gail Shaffer Blankenau is a historian, professional genealogist, and award-winning author from Lincoln, Nebraska. Her book, Journey to Freedom: Uncovering the Grayson Sisters’ Escape from
Nebraska Territory (Bison Books, 2024), received the Nebraska Book Award in Nonfiction History and was a finalist for the Midwest Book Award in Regional History. Blankenau tells the riveting
true story of Celia and Eliza Grayson—two young Black women who escaped enslavement in 1858 and changed the national conversation about slavery’s expansion. A passionate researcher and storyteller,
she holds an M.A. in History from the University of Nebraska–Kearney and earned the James L. Sellers Prize for her pioneering work on the Grayson sisters. Gail serves on the Nebraska Advisory Board
for the digitization of historic newspapers and is a sought-after speaker on genealogy, women’s history, and untold chapters of the American past.
Learn more...
Kim Hachiya is one of the winners of the Nonfiction Nebraska as Place Award as one of the editors of The Nebraska Sandhills.
She retired communications specialist for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the author of Dear Old Nebraska U (Nebraska Press 2019) and an associate editor for
The Nebraska Sandhills (Nebraska Press 2024). She volunteers with Platte Basin Timelapse and is affiliated with the UNL Emeriti and Retirees Association, where
she is secretary. She is a 1977 graduate of UNL. She and her spouse Tom White live with pug dogs, Zing and Blueberry, and a tabby cat, Tito.
Mylisa Larsen is the winner of the Teen Novel Award with her novel, Quagmire Tiarello Couldn’t Be Better .
She is the author of the novels Quagmire Tiarello Couldn’t Be Better and Playing Through The Turnaround and the
picture books All Of Those Babies, If I Were A Kangaroo, How To Put Your Parents to Bed, and
Ho Ho Homework. She has lived in ten states and two countries and has loved things about all of them.
The first place she always finds in a new place is the library.
Learn more...
Quentin Fortney is the winner of the Design Honor Award with his book Rodeo Clown.
Quentin Fortney is an artist living in Lincoln, Nebraska. He received his BA from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2019 and currently works as the Lead
Preparator at the Sheldon Museum of Art. Through photography, poetry, installation, and the book form, he explores the relationship between identity and environment,
drawing deep influence from his home landscape of Nebraska. Fortney has published two books and two zines under his own imprint, 7 7 7 Press. His work has been exhibited
in thirteen solo and nine group shows across the United States, and is held in the collections of the April Sampson Cancer Center in Lincoln and the 6th Floor Project in
McCook, Nebraska.
Learn more...
Colby Coash is the winner of the Nonfiction Memoir Award with his memoir Running Naked: Surviving the Legacy of Family in Rural Nebraska.
Colby Coash grew up in Bassett, Nebraska, a small town with barely more than 1,000 in population. Bassett was where his path was set by the generations that came before him. He took
advantage of all the opportunities afforded him, but was compelled to forge his own path. He pursued everything with rigor and the sort of Midwestern work ethic nurtured in many small
towns just like Bassett. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife, Rhonda, and his own legacy, Cole. After being term-limited out of the Nebraska legislature, he now works as a lobbyist,
parlaying his experience in politics to advocate for students, vulnerable people, and education. Never one to give up on a dream, Colby continues to act in movies including It Snows All the Time
and Hide and Bleed and a handful of campy horror films and commercials, pleased that his undergraduate education was not wasted and his early experience on stage, naked, turned out to
be a revealing life-changing experience.
Learn more...
Kailee Pedersen is the winner of the Fiction Honor Award with her novel, Sacrifical Animals.
Kailee writes haunted, unsettling speculative fiction. She graduated with a BA in classics from Columbia University, specializing in ancient Greek. Kailee was adopted from
Nanning, China and grew up in Nebraska, where her family owns a farm. She is the author of the queer poetry chapbook Pastorale and the novel Sacrificial Animals, which was named
one of the New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2024 and a finalist for Best Horror at the 2025 Libby Book Awards. When not scribbling down her next book, you can catch her
studying opera performance at the Mozarteum University, playing video games, or working as a software engineer in New York City. Her second novel, The Minimalist, is forthcoming
from St. Martin's Press in 2026.
Learn more...
Bob Ross is the winner of the Poetry Honor Award with his collection, Those We Can No Longer See: New and Selected Poems. He was born in Brown County, Nebraska,
living first on a small ranch south of Long Pine, and grew up in Ainsworth. After a short stint in the Air Force, he returned to the University of Nebraska Lincoln, determined to become
a writer of literary fiction, and finished at University of Arizona’s MA writing program. Eventually completing his MFA at the U. of Montana. He has taught in Fairbanks, Alaska, at the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln, in Mission, South Dakota, Pocatello, Idaho, and in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author (with photographer Margaret MacKichan) of In the Kingdom of Grass,
published in 1992 by the University of Nebraska Press. More recently, he has published Billy Above the Roofs and Karla or The Weight Liftress, two short novels, with
Stephen F. Austin State University Press. Those We Can No Longer See is his second volume of poetry, after Solitary Confinement, published by Abattoir Editions in 1975
Ross is married to Janice Miller of San Antonio. They live part of the year in San Antonio, Texas, and part of the year in a rural house north of Ainsworth, with a good view of the Niobrara River.
He continues to write fiction and the occasional poem and hopes to join the distinguished canon of Nebraska authors.
Judy Brackett Crowe is the winner of the Poetry Award with her collection The Watching Sky.
She was born in Nebraska, moved to California as a child, and has lived in a small town in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills for many years.
She believes, in the words of the wonderful children's book What You Know First by Patricia MacLachlan, that "what you know first stays with you." The
disparate regions of prairie, mountains, rivers, and ocean inform her life and her writing. She is a longtime member of the Community of Writers and has
taught creative writing and English literature and composition at Sierra College. Her poems have appeared in Oberon, Epoch, The Maine Review,
The MacGuffin, Commonweal, Midwest Review, Cloudbank, Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Midwest Quarterly,
Cloudbank, Subtropics, California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology, The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets
(Backwaters Press), and elsewhere.
Learn more... Generative Writing Workshop
Open to ALL levels of writers this workshop is about generating writing. Just like our bi-monthly
Generative Writing Group at Larksong Writers Place we will provide prompts, and start off with a short poem to reflect on and stimulate your muse. Then we
set a timer (25 to 30 minutes) and everyone runs with the suggested ideas in whatever direction they want to go. It is amazing discovering what you can create
when the clock is ticking. After writing together everyone is invited to share what they've written. No one HAS to share, but once the creativity starts flowing
it's hard to resist the fellowship of sharing new work. There's nothing like the heady feeling of sharing new combinations of words hot off the synapses. After
that it's revise, edit, or completely rewrite. Whatever you like.
Learn more...
Sentence-by-Sentence: A Writing Game
Sometimes writing can be a lonely pursuit, and what better way to cure loneliness than by writing in
community? During this writing game, we will tell stories together one sentence at a time. In the first round, each participant will write an opening line. When
time is called, everyone will pass their paper to the next person, who will then add the next sentence. With each subsequent round, our stories will grow together
until we reach the final line. At the end of the workshop, we’ll share our collective stories aloud!
These workshops will be facilitated by: Brad Anderson lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, and married his high
school sweetheart, LuAnne Rose (Shaw) Anderson, when they were both 19. LuAnne died from Alzheimer’s on January 20, 2017, at the age of 61.
Brad started writing poetry during LuAnne’s illness. He had never written poetry but found it was cathartic and helped him survive a difficult
time. He continues to write poetry today. As Irish poet David Whyte said, “It is a language against which we have no defenses.”
Monty Hall writes stories and poetry about disability, death, queer
identity, and other truths. He has run an online writing workshop series with Web of Connection (a Buddhist non-profit based in Colorado) since
2023. His work has appeared in the online magazines Drifting Sands Haibun and Suburban Witchcraft. He received his Bachelor's in English Literature
from University of Colorado Colorado Springs in 2016.
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.
Learn more... This panel will feature:
Tosca Lee is a New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including The Line Between, The Progeny, The Legend of Sheba, and Iscariot. Her work has
been called “superior storytelling” by Publishers Weekly, translated into seventeen languages, and optioned for TV and film. Her commendations include two
International Book Awards, Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion, and ECPA Fiction Book of the Year. Learn more... Join us for a cozy chat between the former and current Nebraska State Poets Matt Mason and Jewel Rodgers as they discuss their roles and experiences as
state poets, poetry in Nebraska, favorite poetsand poems, and much more!
This panel will feature:
Matt Mason served as the Nebraska State Poet from 2019-2024 and has run poetry workshops in Botswana, Romania, Nepal, and Belarus for the U.S. State Department.
His poetry has appeared in The New York Times and Matt has received a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Nebraska
Arts Council. His work can be found in Rattle, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, and in hundreds of other publications. Mason's 5th book, Rock Stars, was published by
Button Poetry in 2023. Learn more...
Jewel Rodgers is the 2025–2029 Nebraska State Poet, a 2025 Academy of American Poets Fellowship recipient, and a 2025 AIRIES Fellow. A three-time Omaha Entertainment
and Arts Award nominee for Best Performance Poet and a three-time TEDx speaker, she is a nationally touring interdisciplinary performer and spatial practitioner.
Jewel merges art, storytelling, and placemaking to inspire and connect audiences across the U.S. and beyond. Learn more...Gail Shaffer Blankenau
Kim Hachiya
Mylisa Larsen
Quentin Fortney
Colby Coash
Kailee Pedersen
Bob Ross
Judy Brackett Crowe
Larksong Writers Place
Brad Anderson
Monty Hall
One Book One Nebraska Author Talk
Tosca Lee
In Conversation with Matt Mason and Jewel Rodgers
Matt Mason
Jewel Rodgers
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