Karen Gettert Shoemaker is the author of the novel The Meaning of Names, a One Book One Nebraska selection for 2016 and Omaha Reads selection for 2014. Her award-winning collection of short stories, Night Sounds & Other Stories was published in 2002, and re-published in the United Kingdom in 2006.
Her fiction and poetry have been published in a variety of newspapers and journals, including The New York Times, The London Independent, Prairie Schooner, and South Dakota Review. 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.
Shoemaker is a graduate of the University of Nebraska where she received a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism, and both a Master's Degree and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing. Awards for her writing include a Nebraska Press Association Award for Feature Writing, two Independent Artist Fellowship Awards from the Nebraska Arts Council, and a Nebraska Book Award for Short Fiction.
She has taught creative writing and literature classes for more than 25 years. Since 2016 she has been conducting independent writing workshops and working as an independent manuscript consultant and writing coach. She is the founder and director of Larksong Writers Place.
Dorothy E. Ramsay graduated with a double major bachelor’s degree in Creative and Technical writing, with a minor in journalism in 1980. Upon graduation, she did not have the Great American Novel awaiting publication, and the newspaper wasn’t hiring. She wound up with a 30 year career in the corporate world developing lots of spreadsheets and presentations, retiring in 2015.
Since then, she has been reviving her writing muse from a long sleep, and her first book, Milly for Mayor, was published in October 2020. Her background with spreadsheets enabled her to serve many non-profits as treasurer on their boards, and she was honored when asked to serve as treasurer for Larksong Writers Place. “Our dreams are sisters, so I think it’s a great match,” she says, “and I’m looking forward to being associated with Larksong for a long time.”
Lucy Adkins is a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Her poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, and her latest two collections, Two-Toned Dress and A Crazy Little Thing won Nebraska Book Awards for Poetry in 2021 and 2023. In addition, she has co-authored two books of non-fiction, Writing in Community and The Fire Inside, and was named a winner of the Lincoln 2020 Mayors Arts Award for Excellence in the Literary Arts.
Her undergraduate degree is from Auburn University, and her MFA in creative writing is from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Lucy has been a writing instructor and workshop leader for many years.
Twyla M. Hansen’s newest poetry book is Feeding the Fire (2022 WSC Press). She is a board member of Larksong Writers Place, a creative writing presenter through Humanities Nebraska Speaker’s Bureau since 1992, and was Nebraska State Poet in 2013-2018.
Recent honors include the Nebraska Literary Heritage Award, President’s Award from Nebraska Center for the Book, and the Lincoln High School Distinguished Alumni Award. Her book Rock • Tree • Bird won both the 2018 Nebraska Book Award and WILLA Literary Award. Her previous books Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet and Potato Soup won Nebraska Book Awards. She is a collaborator in poem-art books Seen in Otoe County (2023) with photographer Michael Farrell, Prairie Suite: A Celebration (2006) with ornithologist Dr. Paul Johnsgard, and Field Trip (2002) with print artist Karen Kunc. Twyla’s writing is published recently in periodicals: Briar Cliff Review, Oakwood, Prairie Schooner, South Dakota Review; anthologies: More in Time: A Tribute to Ted Kooser, Nebraska Poetry: A Sesquicentennial Anthology 1867-2017, The Night’s Magician: Poems About the Moon; websites: Academy of American Poets, Poetry Foundation, Poetry Out Loud; and many more.
Brittany Brauer is a University of Nebraska–Lincoln graduate with nearly twenty years of experience in indie publishing. She has authored more than three dozen titles across multiple genres and brings a professional background in publishing operations, marketing, and communications. In addition to her work as an author, Britt has held leadership and consulting roles in marketing, publishing, and logistics, and is currently developing a boutique publishing house, Wolfe Hollow Media. She is deeply committed to literary education and community-based creative spaces.
Nick Salestrom is a teacher, a science-fiction and fantasy writer, and a Nebraska native. In 2023, he was selected as the Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year for Southeast Community College within the Nebraska Community College Association. He has served as a visiting writer for Writers Write with the Lincoln City Libraries. Within Larksong Writers Place, he serves the Speculative-Fiction Writers Meetup, and hosts Third Thursdays: Writers in Conversation
Mary Pipher graduated in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969 and received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska in Clinical Psychology in 1977. She was a Rockefeller Scholar in Residence at Bellagio and has received two American Psychological Association Presidential Citations, one of which she returned to protest psychologists’ involvement in enhanced interrogations at Guantánamo and other black sites.
Mary was born in the Ozarks and grew up in rural Nebraska. As a girl she liked reading, writing, swimming, being outdoors and talking to her friends and family. She still enjoys these activities. She is also a community organizer and activist for many causes. She lives in Nebraska with her husband Jim.
Pipher is the author of 11 books including 4 New York Times bestsellers including Reviving Ophelia and Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age. Her latest book is A Life in Light.
Ted Kooser, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and U.S. Poet Laureate (2004–2006), is Presidential Professor of the University of Nebraska and one of Nebraska’s most highly regarded poets. He is the author of many full-length collections of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Delights and Shadows, as well as The Blizzard Voices and Valentines. His work has appeared in many periodicals including the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, the Kenyon Review, and Prairie Schooner. His poems appear regularly in textbooks and anthologies currently in use in secondary schools and college classrooms across the country. He has received two NEA fellowships in poetry, the Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, The James Boatwright Prize, and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council.
In addition to his many volumes of poetry, Kooser is also the author of two memoirs, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps and Lights on a Ground of Darkness: An Evocation of a Place and Time, and well as two writing guides, The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets and (with coauthor Steve Cox) Writing Brave and Free: Encouraging Words for People Who Want to Start Writing.
Born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939, Kooser earned a B.S. at Iowa State University in 1962 and an M.A. at the University of Nebraska in 1968. He is a former vice-president of the insurance company Lincoln Benefit Life, where he worked for many years. He lives on an acreage near the town of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife, Kathleen Rutledge, and dogs, Howard and Little Guy. He has a son, Jeff, and a granddaughter, Margaret.
Linda Kallhoff received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Medical Social Services from Mount Marty College in Yankton, South Dakota. Linda served as the Social Services Director for Saint Anthony’s Hospital in O’Neill, Nebraska, where she developed the hospital’s first Social Service Department. She worked for 35 years as an Area Director for an organization serving individuals who experienced Intellectual Disabilities. She focused her leadership efforts on transitioning from congregate, segregated services to community-based services designed around each customer’s goals, preferences, and support needs. In addition to area program administration involving budget oversight of 1.5 million dollars, human resource & facilities management, Linda developed curriculum and taught Person-Centered thinking and practices to new employees in the 22-county agency.
Linda served as the first Education & Outreach Coordinator for the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Office of Public Guardian which came in to being in 2014. Linda coordinated statewide Guardianship Education classes for 1300 -1500 new private guardians annually. She developed the Court Visitor program designed to help determine eligibility for public guardianship. Linda also developed with Nebraska colleges & universities an internship program to support the work of the OPG & Associate Public Guardians across the state. Linda served as the OPG representative on the Lancaster County Homelessness Coalition, & the New Americans Task force.
Linda served as the Program Coordinator for the Larksong Writer’s Place and Vice Chair of the Larksong Board from 2020 to 2023.
Marjorie Saiser’s poems deal with relationships, the good and not so good. Her Master’s Degree in Creative Writing is from the University of Nebraska, where she received an Academy of American Poets Award. She sometimes likes to memorize her poems and those of others. Her books and a sample reading can be viewed at poetmarge.com.
Of her work, Ted Kooser (U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006) has said: “No poet in this country is better at writing about love and, in a sense, all of her poems are about love.”