 Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am Krista Burns at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Library Commission's weekly online event where we do present topics of interest to librarians in the state. We have commission staff that do presentations and we bring in guests like we have today. We do these sessions every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time. They are free and they are recorded so if you're not able to attend a live session you can always listen to one of our recordings available on our website. This morning we are doing a session on the upcoming Nebraska Book Festival which is going to be held November 14th. I think I'll just pass it on over to Mary Jo, Ryan here at the commission to get us started with our discussion. Go ahead. Thank you Krista. Welcome everybody. It's so good to see you all have joined us and I'm hoping to see a lot of you at the Nebraska Book Festival on Saturday November 14th. I'm very lucky today to have here with me Rod Wagner. Good morning. Good morning Rod. Rod's the director of the Nebraska Library Commission but he's also a longtime supporter and founder of the Nebraska Center for the Book. Rod and I were actually founding members weren't we? I believe that's right along with some other good folks. That was a while ago wasn't it? A while. We won't say how. I'm not sure how long. Is it ten years? Is it ten years? Oh boy. Well we're not going to count. We're just going to say that we're happy that the Nebraska Center for the Book exists and that we're able to present this wonderful Book Festival again this year. Also with us today is Stephanie Grace Woodson. Hi Stephanie. Hi. Stephanie's a local Nebraska author with a large following. She writes I guess you would say Christian Fiction and it's very, very well received and she's a terrific talker. We've had her on our book talk radio show many times. Had a lot of fun talking with her and she's read for us at several events and she'll be reading at the Nebraska Book Festival. She'll be one of our featured readers. Also and not here actually in the studio or in the office with us I'm used to doing radio so the studio. The office with us but at his own office is JB Brummels. Hi JB. Good morning Mary Gill. I'm so glad to hear your voice. I'm always so happy when this works. It's just magic to me. JB's a wonderful Nebraska poet who's had a number of works out and he has a brand new work out from Backwaters Press which is one of our premier publishers here in Nebraska. And JB's also a professor in the English department at Wayne State College. Anything else you'd like to say JB about yourself? No, I don't really want to talk about myself too much. I just want to talk about the book festival and listen to you guys talk. I think that's pretty good introduction. JB's on the board of the Nebraska Center for the Book and has been for many years and he's one of the people who's been very faithful in supporting the book festival and providing input into the development of the book festival over the years. Including hosting one of his own at Wayne State. Alright when are we going back to Wayne State for the book festival? Well we should do that soon. We'll have to figure that one out. Let's talk about this year's festival. This year's festival as I said is November 14th. It's here in Lincoln and it is that's a Saturday. It's all day Saturday. I can give just a little bit of detail about the festival schedule but we'll get into more detail as we go along today. The main points I want to make is that at 8 o'clock in the morning most of you won't care to be there that early but some of you might. It's the Nebraska Center for the Book Annual Meeting and we invite all our members to join the board at that time and just kind of talk about what the year's been like and what we have planned for the future. Then after that at 9.15 the readings and the writer's workshop start and throughout the day there will be vendors in the Grand Rotunda of the Nebraska State Historical Society's Museum of Nebraska History and that's located at 15th and P Street. It's on the corner and the vendors are always a lot of fun aren't they JV? Oh yeah it's wonderful to walk through and see what everybody's got to offer and look at all the new books and some older books certainly. And I think there probably will be some other things that we haven't had in the past. I know that one of the vendors is a massage therapist. She'll be doing chair massages for all the writers who have got writer's cramp during the workshop and we also have nice copy and snacks from the coffee house here in Lincoln that will be provided through the support of the University of Nebraska Press, the Friends of the University of Nebraska Press. It's a really nice kind of festive, relaxed day. Readings, writer's workshops, we have a lovely awards luncheon that we'll talk more about and a number of other activities including what I'm looking forward to which is a conversation between three Nebraska poets. Maybe what we should do is just kind of start talking a little bit about how the festival came to be. JV were you around for the first one? Well I was there and there were a number of literature festivals before we actually officially started and I was at those as well. But I didn't have a lot to do with the early book festivals. But there's a long tradition and I've enjoyed them all and it's a wonderful time for everybody to get together once a year to see some people you don't see all that often and to hear what everybody's up to. And to hear those writers read from their own work. If you haven't done that before or for those of you librarians that lead book groups, if your book group has never done this, has never had a writer come and read from their own work or has never made a field trip to something like the book festival it is a mind blowing experience. It just really is. Stephanie, maybe you could talk a little bit about what you've done with book groups. It's always a lot of fun to get feedback from people who have read your work. It's always very encouraging for the writer. I don't know anything that's more fun for a writer than to finally get in contact with some people who have actually read their work because it's a very lonely occupation. You're usually by yourself in an office and you don't get a lot of feedback. So that can be a big highlight for a writer's year to be in a room full of people who will actually listen while they read something that they've slaved over and maybe rewritten 90,000 times and they finally have a script on the page. I love to talk about Nebraska History so I usually do a little bit of this is where I got this idea and I always tell people that what really happened is a lot more interesting than what anything I could make up. I love to talk about the factual background for some of the historical fiction that I do. So it's always a good time. Always a good time. Go ahead, JV, I'm sorry. I was going to say I want to second that. What we do is pretty lonely. I mean it's one person on a keyboard and that's where we spend most of our time. So when we get a chance to actually get face to face with some readers and listeners and get that human response and direct and immediate response, that's very helpful. It's one of my favorite things as well in this writing life is to get that kind of direct contact. I think the other thing that happens at a festival too, although I haven't been to the Nebraska Book Festival before, anytime that a group of writers get together that's always fun to encourage each other in the work too. As in any profession, you have your unique little quirks that only other writers can understand and it's kind of fun to get together with a group of people who do understand and to share the private jokes and whatever. But that's also a highlight of something like this because it enables people from a very solitary profession to get together and share. That's good too. And for those librarians out in our audience that work with book groups, you can kind of see why this would be a really fun thing for your customers who are in book groups and those who aren't to come to the festival and to enjoy this opportunity as well. Now one of the things that's happened with the Nebraska Book Festival, this is the 18th Nebraska Book Festival and it has actually evolved over the years. We started out with a focus on the what I call the dead Nebraska writers but our famous classic genius writers from Nebraska. And our focus was mostly on that and we went from college to college and had our festival at those colleges. And Rob, that was a pretty good way to get started don't you think? I think it was a good way to get started and we had great help and support from those who stepped up and offered their colleges and universities as a place. They provided the people for the hard work of organizing the event. And believe me it is hard work. And JV knows that because Wayne State was one of those post institutions some years ago. University of Nebraska at Carney has been the lead and the host for the event in past years. I think three times at least it was held there. And I remember Shattern State College Peru State College. So that was kind of the history at University of Nebraska. So it's really made the rounds around from university to college across the state. That was kind of history. And then as we begin to take a more contemporary look at more contemporary writers, we looked at having festivals that focused on plains area writers not just Nebraska writers. And then I think JV probably was one of the people who brought up the idea that we kind of begin to return back to our roots of focusing on Nebraska writers. You want to talk about that JV? Well it seemed to make sense. I mean yeah much in the history of the book festival has worked very well. And I remember very fondly Shattern State Peru State, the Wayne State one, and others. And we were spread though and seemed not to the focus kept shifting around. And it seemed to be time to look locally, look at Nebraska writers. I mean it's such a great tradition of Nebraska writers. And in Maricopa you mentioned the, you know, well Nye, Hart and Santos and Cather and Isley. You didn't mention my name, but that generation of those generations. And that's a heritage that all Nebraskans can be very, very proud of their literary heritage. One of the things Nebraskans I think can be proud of too is the current state of literature in Nebraska. There are a lot of Nebraska writers and they're working very productively and they're doing very good work. And so to focus upon Nebraska writers who are currently working I think is helpful for those, for us who are working and it makes what writers are doing contemporarily more familiar to a public and that's always important too. The other thing I wanted to mention is that the Nebraska Center for the Book has just been a steadfast supporter of this kind of activity throughout the years. And so for those of you who don't know what the Center for the Book is, it's really not a place. It's a coalition of organizations like the Library Commission, libraries across the state, the Humanities Council, a variety of organizations have come together with individuals that want to support books and reading and writing. And this is one of the things we do to support that. Maybe if we move on a little bit to the luncheon portion of the day, that's our awards luncheon. That way we could go ahead and give you just kind of a low down of one of the other activities that is big with the Nebraska Center for the Book and then just kind of focus on what we're going to do during that luncheon. I noticed we have some questions. Oh, that's from before. Oh, okay. We're going to go out to the website. That's a good idea. We're going to go to the website. Chris had just reminded me we've got links here and those links are on our delicious account if you want to see those links and go back to them later. Do you want to do the Facebook page and just go straight through the... book festival and we'll go to Facebook later. Okay, this is the book festival homepage and we have quite a bit of information here. If you see Get Involved, read the book in the right hand corner. That's a rotating of all the different authors. It rotates to their books so people can see all the different books that are represented that are 2009 Nebraska books. There's Stephanie Grace Woodson's book up there at the top. There it is. Harley Jane Act, A Date You Can't Refuse, A Lantern in Her Hand. The reason why that's on there, even though we know the Best Reader Aldrich is no longer with us, because Teresa Lorenzen, who's the curator of the Best Reader Aldrich House in Elmwood, Teresa's going to come in at 4 o'clock on Saturday and she's going to lead a group book discussion on A Lantern in Her Hand and this is something we haven't done before. I think it's going to be a blast because I think a lot of the people who come to this will have read A Lantern in Her Hand and will want to talk about it. So I'm hoping that we have a lot of people in that session who've read the book and want to talk about it. Moving on down the list, that's A Sandhills Ballad by LeDette Randolph. These are all Nebraska writers. Here we have JV's book, A City at War. JV, interesting cover on that book. Well, thank you. I'm glad it's meant to be noticeable. I'm not sure what's all going on on that. Great Cosmosky Backwaters Press picked that cover and I'm very pleased with it. I love the form of it. I do too. Can't wait to see it in person. The next book is Ethigies. This is a book of poetry of anthology, actually, edited by Allison Hedge Coke. We also have Michael Forsberg, who's a well known conservation photographer here in Nebraska, and he will be here talking about how he does his work and I think some of the people who did the writing in his book, including Ted Couser and Dave Wishart will be here as well talking about how the writing pairs with the photography. Of course, Ted Couser will be here and this is his latest book, Lights on a Ground of Darkness. The Lauren Isley Reader has been reissued by the Lauren Isley Society and they will be some of their members. We'll be here reading from that and I think this new version has an introduction by Ray Bradbury. Yeah, pretty cool. Sean Doolittle will be here talking about his book, Safer. Mary Piper will be here talking about her new book, Seeking Peace, Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World and she'll be reading from that book along with the Hilda Raz will be here and she'll be reading from What Happens, her latest book in poetry. So you can see it's a real variety, I think. It shows I think depth and the variety of our amazing Nebraska riders. So I'm really pleased with the lineup and these readings will take place all day long starting at 9.15 and ending at, I believe the last one is about 4.15 or maybe it goes till 5.15. Is that correct? It does. The last one goes till 5.15 and then we get to go hear more. And then we get to go hear more. Yeah, Stephanie just mentioned that after that we have a short break and we move out of the State Historical Society down the street to a coffee house that will be set up upstairs for us to have an evening of readings. We'll have a hosted readings from 6 to 8 p.m. and the lineup for this is also very interesting and if you'll bear with me I'm going to just talk a little bit about who they are. Echo Poetico is a pair of people, a musician and a Slam Poet, Dominic Guerre and Oscar Rios Puerre. Beth Gillespie is a Slam Poet, Ryan Johnson is a Poet, Lisa Knapp is a Rider, Greg Kuznicki is a Poet and Rider, Clara Couchera, Marge Cizer, Stam Stekker and Marnie Voss. These are all people from all over Nebraska who are coming in to do these hosted readings and I think it'll be really fun again. It's a coffee house but they do have food so for people who have a chance to grab dinner it would be an opportunity to have a snack and also here's some readers and if you go to this place on our website that Christa was just showing you can learn more about all those readers. At 8 p.m. we have an open mic and one of the things I didn't mention yet is that at the work we do have Rider's workshops one in the morning and one in the afternoon at the festival and these Rider's workshops will be doing Rider's projects and the riders at the Rider's projects will be coming to read at the open mic as long as anybody else who wants to I mean anybody from Lincoln can come to this open mic or from all over Nebraska but people from Lincoln can just walk in and read so that'll be kind of interesting too and I don't know how long that'll go. Yeah I don't think they close till midnight or one o'clock so it could go on late some of us will not. So if you look at the schedule Christa has pulled up the schedule this will kind of give you an idea the annual meeting in the beginning of the day 8 a.m. 9.15 we begin our readings and Rider's workshops 11.30 to 1.30 is the luncheon 2 to 3 is the roundtable discussion with three Nebraska poets and Rob maybe you could talk and JB too because you were part of the board meeting where this was discussed at the Nebraska Center for the Book but this is a brilliant idea I think. It's a conversation with three of our preeminent poets who have by the way been a sort of a readers or a reading and writing support group for each other over the years. Well I don't remember whose idea it was certainly it wasn't mine but it's a great idea I think I'm looking forward to the whole day but I think this in particular Ted Kuser, Bill Clefkorn, Don Welch these poets are each institutions in the state and they are contemporaries they've known each other for a long time they're just I'm very eager to hear what they've got to say I've got unbridled respect for them as individuals and for their work and for what they've done for other poets and riders for years in the state so yeah I'm really looking forward to this. I'm sitting here trying to remember and I really don't but I think whoever did bring it up to begin with everybody just thought oh what a great idea and these guys are so generous they I think pretty readily agreed to do it so we're just really delighted this will be a really special part of a great program so like I'm really looking forward to this part of the festival program I know Becky Faber who's one of the board members on the center of the book she's at the University of Nebraska Lincoln she has been a big supporter of this idea and I think it's interesting to have the sort of keynote event be something very informal like this a conversation I think it'll be held in the auditorium of the Nebraska State Historical Siting Museum of Nebraska History and that auditorium if you haven't been there is pretty intimate it's not like a big cavernous auditorium so I think it'll be a very fun event and we're looking forward to it. If we could go back just for a minute to the awards luncheon for those of you who don't know this the Nebraska Center for the Book does provide yearly awards one is the Mildred Bennett Award which recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to the literary tradition in Nebraska and that will be announced we can't announce it now but that will be announced it's a surprise at the luncheon so buy a luncheon ticket yeah it's not a surprise to the person who got it that's true and then the second award is the Jane Gueski the Jane Pope Gueski Award and Jane Gueski has just been a wonderful person some of us knew her personally she was the director of the Nebraska Library Commission for many years she was a bookseller she was just a tremendous force for literary health in this state and this award goes to an organization that has made an exceptional long term contribution to our literary our state literary tradition so those two awards are always given at the awards luncheon in addition the Nebraska Book Awards are given at the awards luncheon and I think if you click on that here we are the book award winners are on the screen in front of you we are very excited to know that most of those winners will be represented by either the writer or the publisher who will come to accept the award we know for sure that some people will speak that includes Ron Hansen who will be speaking and Stu Magnuson perhaps there will be a couple of other speakers who will either speak or read a small portion from their books and that's always exciting isn't it Ron? yeah this is really on the few times we've done this has been a really popular part of the festival because people really do enjoy the chance to have a chance to hear from the of the books that have received awards because they have interesting thoughts to share about their books and they do some readings and we always have exceptional awards to offer in this category so that will be a really neat part of the festival and we're just delighted Ron Hansen has a wonderful book, Exiles well known and we're proud that he's in Nebraska and he'll be back here he lives in California and he'll be back here for the program and Stu Magnuson has just a wonderful book and he too will be on that he will be here to talk about his book too so this is a tremendous opportunity to get familiar with these folks and hear about their work. Yeah and it's always fun to see the people who win the awards because you know even these people like Ron Hansen who's a famous author, they're very touched and very pleased to win an award from their home state so it's pretty cool. Just sort of moving on for the rest of that, another thing that will happen at that luncheon which is very exciting for us as library people is that we will announce the 2010 One Book One Nebraska book that we will be reading all over the state next year. It's a big secret but we're excited about it aren't we Ron? I know. It's very fitting Yep, yep, so buy a luncheon ticket right now about registration that you might want to tell your customers in your libraries. There is no registration required for the conference or before the festival. You just come, enjoy yourself however the luncheon it would be nice if people would purchase luncheon tickets in advance. There will be some luncheon tickets available at the event but it would be swell to get luncheon tickets in advance and there's a right there there's ticket information so people can, if you click on PDF version you can see they simply send me a check for $12 with a note how many people are coming. Can you still have openings? We do. I know there will be some tickets sold at the event so we've got some extra. The other thing that does require registration is the writer's workshops. They are full at this time but you can go to this address and it's our library training portal right there. This is what it looks like. You click on the 14th in November you get two choices of writer's workshops come up. One is the morning workshop which is Kelly Maddigan Erlinson and her workshop is called Passing the Sew What Test, Writing Memoir That Matters The second workshop is in the afternoon, 3.15 to 5.15 and that's Harley Jane Kozak will be teaching that and her workshop is called Help. I think I've got a book in me from Pipe Green to Publication so again two good workshops right now they are full but I can guarantee you that if you're interested in this you will want to get on the waiting list. If you click on waiting list you can put yourself on the waiting list and then just go to the workshop and see if any of the people who are registered did not show up because I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there are several no shows. It just happens. It's how it happens. And right now we're full. I'm sure at both of them, right? Yeah. Give it a try. You never know. It's worth trying. So that's the writer's workshop. I think we pretty much talked about the schedule. We kind of bopped around a little bit. I just wanted to say about deciding up for these. There is no charge for these workshops too so just get your name on the list at least and then like Maria just said show up. Sometimes depending on how many cancellations we get ahead of time we may be able to tell you by the way you were signed up on the waiting list and now you can have an official spot if you want it depends as it gets closer to the day if we have time to do that but since there is no charge just get your name on the list and show up and see if you can get a seat or not. Does it hurt and cost you anything just to sign up? Thanks for reminding me of that Krista. We do send out reminders to the people who have signed up so just in case they find that it's not going to work for them then they let us know and we can let you know. Well and the cool thing about this was there's a lot going on all at the same time so if you do come down you can't get into a workshop. There's still going to be plenty of book related interesting things to go to and to be involved in. And vendors the vendors are going to be quite a lot of fun I think. Plus the State Historical Society Museum has a museum shop so you can shop in there too. It's a good shopping opportunity. Yeah do a little holiday shopping whatever. And you never know we have a lot of Nebraska's who probably haven't spent any time in the museum and they have changing exhibits that happen in these corner and that corner so. Yeah. That would be fun too. That if you haven't seen they have a new exhibit at the state at the museum of WPA Era Nebraska artwork. Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. So familiar with that kind of artwork that kind of public artwork it's very interesting to see what was going on in Nebraska at that time with that public art project so that's very cool too. So people should bring their checkbooks their cash but they also have a chance to get their books signed because we have a lot of people a lot of writers presenters there to autograph. And that's another thing that for any author who's here doing a signing I'm pretty confident in saying they would be thrilled if someone who's read them cared enough to bring the book and say would you sign this for me? That's always a wonderful thing for a writer to have happen. Yeah that's very cool. And you don't have to be apologetic about that. Readers never have to be apologetic about that. I'm always wondering about that. I'm glad to know that. No it's great. It'll be the featured writers who are doing the readings of course they will be prepared to do signing but I've also been telling other Nebraska writers to be sure and come by and sign up there's going to be a table where they can sign up to do signings as well because I know there's going to be a lot of people there who are not our featured readers who have got books that you're reading and that your customers are reading and so they can get their book signed as well. And there will be a bookstore of course to buy books and then get them signed. So Lee Booksellers is going to bring out one of their traveling bookstores and it'll be a lot of fun to go through the materials they have that will be featured Nebraska writers. I guess at this point I would like to ask if there are any questions on the part of those of you in the audience and please don't hesitate. If you don't have a microphone you can type your question. I've gone ahead and unmuted everybody if you do the microphone just speak up. If not, type into our questions section of the interface and we'll see you there and answer your question from there. Laura said it sounds like a lot of fun. Okay Laura, hope to see you there. That'd be great. The festival relies on a number of organizations too. I see we have some new contributors this year that we haven't, probably haven't had in the past. We always want to be sure to thank all of those organizations and people who have contributed in one way or other to the funding, necessary funding to make the festival possible. Yeah that's true. In fact I should say it is in fact due to the work of the Nebraska Center for the Book, the Nebraska Humanities Council, and the Nebraska Library Commission that this even happens and without the Nebraska State Historical Society donating us the space free of charge, sure we wouldn't be having a festival this year. In addition the Duncan Family Trust provided some funding. Lee Booksellers generously sends their staff and their stock to the vendor tables. The Nebraska Arts Council provided funding. The Prairie Fire Newspaper provided us these great ads free of charge. Good half page ads, beautiful. University of Nebraska Press my gosh they are such good supporters of a lot of things but particularly of the festival they're hosting that their friends of the University of Nebraska Press are hosting all the refreshments and that's a big thing because many of us organizations are not allowed to purchase things like refreshments so it's nice to know that Friends Group can do that. The Woods Charitable Fund has been very generous I mean we just have been very lucky this year I think. And thank you for reminding me. Another thing, we got a question? Janet from the Library Commission wants to know how do I become a member of the Nebraska Center for the Book and receive news of future events? Fabulous. You can become a member of the Nebraska Center for the Book by if you go to www. There's a link under get involved. Let's see if there's a link under get involved. Join NCB. There it is up at the top there. At the right. At the top. Join the Nebraska Center for the Book. Right there click on that link. There we go. And you can join the Center for the Book and help support us. And then if you go back another step where we were there's a bunch of ways you can get involved with the festival. Obviously reading the books and we've listed those. If you know of an organization that would like to help sponsor the festival we are still in need of some funding. Catherine Brockmire here at the Nebraska Library Commission is pulling together a crack cadre of volunteers to do all kinds of things at the festival. We would love to have some volunteers and I know she's thrilled to hear from you. Her phone number is 4002 and I know she's going to have people doing everything from registration to evaluation to assisting in the rooms. So we really are anxious to get more help that day of the festival. Benders and exhibitors of course are very important in supporting the festival. It's current. These are the exhibitors. I believe it's almost current. I was going to say it's completely current up to date but I think I got a couple more yesterday. Anyway these are the people we know for sure will be here and there will be some others. So that's all the questions I guess what I'd like to do next. Oh I just heard somebody. Oh this is Ruth and just being on this is exciting. I think we can get a carload from Central City to come. So I look forward to seeing you on the 14th. Hi Ruth this is Stephanie. I wanted to say hi to you. Hi Ruth this is Stephanie. I wanted to say hi. Oh hi Stephanie yes. Long time no see. Well we have had Stephanie out to our school and talking to English classes about writing and we have most of your books in the library. Oh well thank you. That's fabulous. I hope we get to see you on Saturday. You said you're going to bring a carload. That's great. I hope so too. Well I think it makes a great field trip for teachers for students but also for just people who love to read you know and want to immerse themselves in that kind of a day. Answer questions at this point. We probably touched on this but I just wanted to say that it's always been important to me that it's always been possible to find one opportunity one very important opportunity to showcase and celebrate the great writers we have in Nebraska who are writing wonderful books, fiction, poetry, nonfiction and the whole range of writing making that the people have a chance to get all these writers to explore their books. I guess I'd just like to before we sign off I would really like to give Stephanie and JV a chance to talk a little bit about their experiences either as writers or in a festival like this whatever you'd like to talk about and also if you'd like to read from anything. Oh well my experiences I've touched on this before. My experiences have always been very positive. I love listening to the writers. I love just talking to writers. Stephanie mentioned that before. For me it's a chance to see people that I don't see very often. The writers are there. An audience for what I've written or what other people have written that's a really special experience. In this state we host a lot of readings up here and I don't know that I can overestimate how joy those readings often are for everybody involved to have literature come alive through the author's voice I think is a real significant experience for folks. Yeah I can read if you'd like I'll read a poem from City at War and I thought of this poem this morning there used to be fairies running across the Missouri and they're not around anymore because we have enough bridges for people to get across and I think it was a sunny morning it put me in mind a day years ago and that put me in mind of this poem it's called Dakota 1933 Now since the Corps of Engineers built the bridge it's just across the river on a fast Thursday night trip to the University Towns downtown Slam perfect fit for four in a Cadillac headed to hear poets of another state cuss the president by name and list the long litany of his sins. Back in the day we crossed on the ferry an afternoon gig while we waited by the closed bar and bait the paddle wheeler struggled across the current of the only unditch stretch this side of Montana toward our raised flag and when we ferried back across the wide and wild water the pilot back in country just that year told of running off the bribe extorting corpsman with 30-30 from the wheelhouse more guns and palms back then but it's the wind strong enough to flap a stiff hat brim and the 50 degree January night that makes tonight's trip historical the lead foot of climate change accelerating this winter through a kayak killing cold November to April showers in a month a pattern I'm told that apes a year at the heart of dust except for the vintage of the cars it could be South Dakota 1933 a town named for a French color the color name for a western sky we pull in at sundown some savage scent in the street air how hard must wind or war blow before we begin to love each other down in the streets still even after we ignite the last of the world's gas this trips only a long winter day on a tall horse the wind watching our backs to cross the bridge late beneath stars and ride toward what lights the town has left to burn and later when all the dams have silted in or washed out and that span too has crumbled a man or some species will float on a different ferry just across the river to the other side more guns than poems back then yeah it seems to be true in my memory anyway wow well that's just a little taste I guess of what it's going to be like at the Nebraska Book Festival we'll have JV reading poetry we'll have Stephanie reading from her book and many other writers and reading and listening and talking opportunities we've missed one of the comments actually on the screen here Laura has from that she enjoyed seeing you when you were in the talk. Well thank you very much! See you have a band club! The libraries in Nebraska have been great to support my work and I really appreciate them all so this will be fun too but the libraries are very important places for us all and what I would have done without the library when I was homeschooling my four kids so it was pretty much my textbook in many ways so it's always fun to go to the libraries talk about Nebraska history which is a passion of mine and all the great secrets from history when JV was talking about the ferry my next year's book is about women homesteading in Dawson County Nebraska Civil War widows coming out and making homestead claims it's the year before when they get to the Missouri they take the train from St. Louis to Council Bluffs and the train just stopped and the bridge wasn't finished so then they had to get on a ferry and go across to Omaha and they could get on the train again one of my editors made the comment I had no idea there was no bridge across the river then and I was like well you know there weren't always bridges across the river it's always fun to learn those little tidbits it'll be fun to do some reading from one of those books and talk about the real inspiration behind it and I think that's a great thing that Stephanie does I've heard you read before and I really appreciate the way you talk about your research and that'll be a feature of your presentation it will be it will talk about where it all comes from I'll be an odd bird among the writers but it'll be fun I think the other thing about a festival like this is when we are from a place we tend to forget what a rich literary heritage we do have and how many wonderful working writers we have in our state so it's always a great encouragement to look around and go wow Nebraska really does have a lot to offer to not only our state but also to the rest of the country we have a lot of wonderful people saying a lot of worthwhile things so that's another it's a good reminder at a festival like this to look around and go wow all these people are working writers who would have thought and it is a great reminder another great reminder is the number of people who have signed up for our writers workshops and the fact that we have a waiting list that's pretty cool yeah that's great cool so we're thrilled about that and they'll all want the secret and the secret is you sit down at the keyboard and start to fill that blank screen with words you know nobody wants to hear that it's hard work we want to make it we'd like to think of it as being easy but no I personally can't wait to hear the poets speak because I stand in awe of the poets I don't know how that brain works but I love to hear them talk about how their brain works and I love to hear them read because it's we're always more amazed with what we can't do than what we do do and I don't know I'm sure that other writers would echo this but when I write something I have to write it over about a thousand times to the point where I'm just so sick of it I can't even believe it even an email has to be edited that's exactly right come back the next afternoon and say okay now is this really what I want to say so when I write poetry it's really bad I don't think it's ever done but at any rate thank you all JB have you got another comment well it's never done right it's only abandoned great quote that's wonderful I love it I love it and I agree please anybody else for the good of the group if I've forgotten anything that we need to be sure to remind people about please do go to our website send your customers your library customers and your students to our website hope to see you all there come early stay late drink coffee there'll be lots of coffee oh I know what I forgot facebook if you're on facebook please become a fan of our facebook page and there we are this is a great resource Kevin Brockmire from our office has been able to manage our facebook page and she's been adding all the information about our vendors and our writers and our fans and she's been encouraging people to do little questions this has been kind of fun because she's asking questions each week like have you read a lantern in her hand and then people talk about what a lantern in her hand meant to them and it's just been a real fun thing to use facebook as one of our publicity tools and just one of our ways of connecting with each other and I hope we continue to use facebook even after the festival I'd like to have our people who attended the writers workshop share some of their pieces some of their work through facebook or you know not the whole thing obviously but with their sections or something 135 fans so far alright so again please do join our facebook fan page and it's a way to stay in touch with other writers and readers anything else for the good of the group any other questions from our audience and or from you too of course JV no I think you've covered I mean you've covered everything I can think of and done it admirably well oh I hear someone talking but we can't hear you can you get closer to your microphones okay anybody have any final comments or questions I've unmuted you all if you do have microphones I see Laura already said in the chat but thanks for a great question and thank you all and we'll see you Saturday November 14th thanks so much well thank you everybody thank you take care see you guys in a couple weeks absolutely so I think that'll wrap it up if there's no more comments or questions thank you for attending this week's Encompass Live and I hope you join us next time next week we'll be doing a session on how to submit grants grant applications, traditions, continue education training and library improvement grants so next week we do have a special date next week so be aware of it we are closed on Wednesday for Veterans Day here at the commission so we are actually doing it on Thursday we're still having on just be Thursday November 12th same time 10 a.m. just rather than Wednesday so I hope you'll join us for that thank you very much bye bye