September 21, 2023 

Tricia Currans-Sheehan is Professor Emerita at Briar Cliff University and was founding editor of The Briar Cliff Review. She has published in Big Muddy, Connecticut Review, Crab Orchard Review, VQR, Fiction, Portland Review, Calyx, South Dakota Review and other journals.  Her collection of stories, The Egg Lady and Other Neighbors, won The Headwaters Literary Competition, sponsored by New Rivers Press. Currans-Sheehan’s second book, The River Road: A Novel in Stories, was an Honorable Mention for the Nashville Prize. Recently, she published a YA trilogy (Scaled, Outside In and Tongues of Light) with writing partner Jeanne Emmons, under the pen name of J.T. Ashmore.

Jeanne Emmons’ collections of poetry include: The Red Canoe (Finishing Line Press); The Glove of the World (winner of the Backwaters Press Reader's Choice Award); Baseball Nights and DDT (Pecan Grove Press); and Rootbound (winner of the New Rivers Press Minnesota Voices Award). Her poems have appeared in many literary journals and have won the Comstock poetry prize, the South Coast Review Poetry Award, the James Hearst Poetry Award, and the Sow's Ear poetry award. She and writing partner Tricia Currans-Sheehan have published the young adult “Deep Skin Series” under the pseudonym J.T. Ashmore.  

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Trained as a visual artist, Michael James has had an unconventional career in both the private sector and academia. His textile art is included in numerous public and private collections, including those of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and many more. He joined the faculty of the Department of Textiles at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2000, concluding that tenure twenty years later as Professor Emeritus and Chair Emeritus. He is the recipient of two Visual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an NEA-sponsored USA–France Exchange Fellowship. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he continues studio and writing practices, and helps to sustain connections among a close-knit group of husband caregivers of dementia sufferers.

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.” 
(Photo credit: Flatwater Free Press) 

Past Third Thursday Readers:

August 17, 2023: Featuring Robert Ross and J. Stevens Berry 

July 20, 2023: Featuring Rita Paskowitz

June15, 2023: Featuring Tyler Jacobs and John Moesner

May 18, 2023: Featuring Jonis Agee

April 20, 2023: Featuring Barbara Schmitz and Bonnie Johnson Bartee. 

March 16, 2023: Featuring Marcia Calhoun Forecki, Rex Walton, and Shoshana Sumrall.

February 23,2023: Featuring Adrian Loehring and Vince Learned

January 19, 2023: Featuring Editors and Contributors of The Good Life Review, including Shyla Shehan, Cat Dixon, Tacheny Perry, Michelle Pierce Battle, Tana Buoy, &  Annie Barker


December 15, 2022: Featuring poets Liz Kay, Sarah McKinstry Brown, and singer Pam Herbert Barger


November 17, 2022: Featuring novelist Brent Spencer and Karen Gettert Shoemaker


October 20, 2022: Featuring poets Matt Mason and Stacey Waite