Sunday, June 10th

UNL Student Union, 1400 R St, 2nd floor auditorium

Kwame Dawes will read from new work (his Guggenheim-winning poetry inspired by the plays of August Wilson) and discuss (in an interview with Timothy Schaffert, Conference Director) the past, present, and future of the Prairie Schooner literary journal (for which he serves as the new Glenna Luschei Editor), his plans for the journal’s new online presence, the process of submitting to journals, etc. Question and answer to follow.

Monday, June 11th

Andrews Hall, Room 229, UNL campus, 14th and Vine

Queerly Written. What does it mean to be a "queer writer" in 2012? Acclaimed LGBTQ authors discuss the role of sexuality and gender identity in their writing and public personae.

Andrews Hall, Room 229, UNL campus, 14th and Vine

Reading/discussion by Florencia Mallon (Nebraska Summer Writers Conference alum), whose novel Beyond the Ties of Blood (just out from Pegasus Books) was workshopped in an NSWC master class. In the tradition of Isabel Allende, the debut novel from Chilean-American Florencia Mellon is a family saga that explores the lives touched by the tragedies of Chile’s vibrant history.

UNL Student Union, 1400 R St, 2nd floor auditorium

Reading/discussion w/ Dave Madden and emily danforth. Madden and danforth are graduates of UNL’s acclaimed creative writing program, both are former assistant directors of the Conference, and both have new books that have received national attention (from such media outlets as Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and NPR). Madden is the author of The Authentic Animal: Inside the Odd and Obsessive World of Taxidermy; danforth is the author of the young-adult novel The Miseducation of Cameron Post.

UNL Student Union, 1400 R St, 2nd floor auditorium

50 Shades of Publishing. A panel discussion re: digital, print-on-demand, e-book, self-publishing and do-it-yourself literary publishing. Start a new literary journal? Self-pub my memoir? Upload my novel for ninety-nine cents? Partner with alternative publishers? Figure out how to best narrow your approach to getting your work read.

Tuesday, June 12th

Andrews Hall, Room 229, UNL campus, 14th and Vine

Composing to Music. Many authors cite music as inspiration, write to music, and incorporate lyrics into their work. Poets and authors of fiction and nonfiction discuss the role of music in their creative processes.

UNL Student Union, 1400 R St, 2nd floor auditorium

Reading/discussion w/ Michelle Tea and Stacey Waite. Novelist, poet, and memoirist Tea is the author of the award-winning Valencia (now being made into a feature-length film project), among others; Waite is the author of the poetry collections and chapbooks Choke, Love Poem to Androgyny, and the lake has no saint.

UNL Student Union, 1400 R St, 2nd floor auditorium

Cleaned The Crocodile's Teeth: South Sudan in Nebraska. An evening with Terese Svoboda, translator of Cleaned the Crocodile's Teeth: Nuer Song, celebrating Nebraskan-Nuer culture. More Nuer now live in Nebraska than anywhere else in the world outside South Sudan. In Africa, they are a cattle-herding people who live along the Nile, made famous by E. Evans Pritchard's classic text on social anthropology, and now by the heroics of the Lost Boys. Astonished by their immigration to her home state, Svoboda will draw parallels between the African savannah and the prairie, the manhood rituals of sport, and their mutual preoccupation with cattle, using examples from her book.

Wednesday, June 13th

Andrews Hall, Room 229, UNL campus, 14th and Vine

Identity and the Writing Process. In a literary climate that often classifies writers by region, gender, race and/or ethnicity, how much do those markers of identity effect literary production and the writing process? This panel will be a discussion about what it means/how it feels to be a writer of color, asking questions about the extent to which racial/ethnic identity consciously (or subconsciously) influences what they write about, who they see as their audience, how they are marketed by their publishers, how critics talk about their work, and anything else having to do with writing and the writing process.

UNL Student Union, 1400 R St, 2nd floor auditorium

Reading/discussion w/ Aracelis Girmay and Meghan Daum. Girmay is the author of the collage-based picture book changing, changing, and the poetry collections Teeth and Kingdom Animalia. Daum is the author of Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House, a personal chronicle of real estate addiction and obsessive fascination with houses, as well as the novel The Quality of Life Report and the essay collection My Misspent Youth.

UNL Student Union, 1400 R St, 2nd floor auditorium

Reading/discussion w/ Lee Martin and Carleen Brice. Martin, a graduate of UNL’s creative writing program, is a novelist and memoirist, and was a Pulitzer finalist for his acclaimed novel The Bright Forever. Brice, formerly of Omaha, is the author of the novel Orange Mint and Honey, which was adapted into an NAACP-award-winning movie.

Thursday, June 14th

Andrews Hall, Room 229, UNL campus, 14th and Vine

Rightful Places: the art of order. Poets and prose writers discuss the aesthetics and mechanics (and instincts) of putting together collections of poetry and short fiction and essays. Should your best poem go first or last? How many stories go into a collection, and should they be linked? How do novelists approach chapters?

University Bookstore, basement of Student Union, UNL, 1400 R St

Author & Reader reception. Join the Conference faculty at University Bookstore for a book signing and refreshments. Stop in any time between 4:30 and 6 to meet the authors and purchase their books.