Visiting Author - Colby Coash - Running Naked: Surviving the Legacy of Family in Rural Nebraska
2024-08-10 16:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
On Saturday, August 10th at 4:30, former state senator and author of the new memoir Running Naked: Surviving the Legacy of Family in Rural Nebraska, Colby Coash, will be sharing his work with guests at Francie & Finch Bookshop! We’ll see you there!
About the Book:
FROM DUSTY ROADS AND DEAD ENDS, A NEBRASKA NATIVE SON FINDS HIS WAY
A former Nebraska state senator hails from the heart of rural Nebraska—tiny Bassett, Nebraska, population 1,010—where his father and grandfather owned and operated the fertilizer plant, the backbone of the rural community. Born into the tapestry of small-town existence, Coash’s narrative unfolds against the backdrop of tight-knit neighbors and the enduring spirit of the American small town.
In this inspiring coming-of-age memoir. Coash chronicles the challenges of the rural economy on his father and his fertilizer business, captures the heart of the heartland in growing up in a place where everybody knows you, painfully tells how his mother abandoned the family for California dreams, and reveals why he, too, couldn’t get out of town fast enough. Becoming a fertilizer man like his father was not in his future.
His journey takes him running shockingly naked across the theater stage in college to the hallowed halls of the Nebraska State Capitol as a senator, with a passion for something beyond the confines of his hometown as he pursued a greater purpose—and one that makes his father proud.
Honest, unfiltered, with dreams as ephemeral as the tumbleweeds that surrounded him, Coash runs from his small-town roots into a life of purpose fulfilled by one of life’s great joys: his own role as a father.
About the Author:
Colby Coash has extended his political experience as a state senator into lobbying for education. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife, Rhonda, and his own legacy, Cole. He even gets a movie role once in a while.

Visiting Author - Jerry Bockoven - What Rhymes With Therapy?: Poetic Pathways to Hope and Healing in Troubled Times
2024-08-17 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Saturday, August 17th at 4:30! Dr. Jerry Bockoven will be presenting his book What Rhymes With Therapy?: Poetic Pathways to Hope and Healing in Troubled Times, a book where “each poem is like a therapy session that offers insights and directions designed to make you strong and resilient in a time when the world’s problems push to erode and weaken.” We can’t wait to see you there!
Follow the link HERE to get your copy today!
About the Book:
It is easy to get lost. One minute you’re hiking along a beautiful trail enjoying the wonders of nature, and the next thing you know, you have made a wrong turn and don’t know where you are. You look around for signs that will reorient you, but no such signs appear. It is then that your mind starts to panic, and more than anything else in the world, you long to be home again.
The outer world is only one place we can get lost. The ever-growing number of problems we are currently facing as a culture can put so much stress on us that we begin to lose the way that leads to emotional health and well-being. Some get lost in depression and anxiety, where they are trapped in an emotional torture chamber. Some wander into the dark forest of anger, where they fight an unwinnable battle against the rest of the world. Others get lost in the past as they grieve unthinkable losses and struggle to free themselves from the clutches of past traumas. Still others lose their way in their relationships as those once cherished connections start to sour and grow bitter.
What Rhymes with Therapy is a road map for those times when we get lost and cannot find our way home. Using the unique language of poetry, What Rhymes with Therapy describes the way emotional and relational problems work and how they can be successfully addressed. Each poem is like a therapy session that offers insights and directions designed to make you strong and resilient in a time when the world’s problems push to erode and weaken. So if you are feeling the burden of being unable to find your way to the health and well-being you want and need, consider these poetic pathways as guides that lead back to the safety, peace, and health of home.
About the Author:
Jerry Bockoven is a native of Lincoln, Nebraska and a lifelong Huskers fan (even when they are losing). Holding a master’s degree in divinity and a Ph.D. in psychology, he has worked as a parish minister, leadership consultant, public speaker and non-profit administrator. He was the chair of the psychology department at Nebraska Wesleyan University from 2002-2011 and currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Psychology. In addition, his work as a psychologist has spanned 30 plus years during which time he conducted therapy with individuals, couples and families addressing a wide variety of relational and emotional challenges. Prior to his retirement in 2020, he worked exclusively with veteran’s issues at the VA in Lincoln. He has published several academic articles and has recently completed his first book entitled “What Rhymes with Therapy.”
In his spare time, Dr. Bockoven enjoys spending time with his family and friends, traveling, playing guitar, doing close-up magic, and surviving Midwest winters.

Book Launch Celebration- Ava Nathaniel Winter - Transgenesis
2024-08-23 08:00 - 17:00 | NE
Poet Ava Nathaniel Winter will be launching her new book Transgenesis at Francie & Finch Bookshop on September 21st a 4:30. We are excited to celebrate this new work, recently featured in the New York Times Book Review, and hailed by fellow authors as “fearless” and “timely”. We can’t wait to see you there!
To order a signed copy of Transgenesis, follow the link HERE!
About the Book:
An excavatory collection of poems tracing the connections between Jewish transfemininity, queer desire, and cultural histories. Selected by Sean Hill for the National Poetry Series, this collection is a scrupulous chronicle of individual and cultural knowledge. In an exceptional debut, Ava Nathaniel Winter challenges our concepts of the beautiful and the sacred, delving not only into the historically marginalized, but also into the chilling subconscious of supremacy. “Let me be clear / from this beginning,” she writes, “What I mean by beauty / is a terror I have fled from / into language.”
Winter writes with a documentarian’s attention, a poet’s resonance. “I’m trying,” she admits, “to find language for what we do / to one another.” From Lódź, Poland, to predominantly white suburban America, from the space shared by queer lovers to antique cabinets filled with Nazi memorabilia, from Talmudic depictions of genderqueer rabbis to archival lynching photos, she regards the tender and the difficult with equal gravity, commemorates the fraught gift of survival.
At the heart of this collection–despite its moments of profound darkness–is a new, hard-won holiness. The “earthy aroma of rye” calling up a mother’s baking, her mother’s, hers. Belief in a lover’s lavishing. A chosen future, one where we are “reader, sibling, sister.” If Transgenesis began in fear of beauty, where it lands is this: “turning at last / to face her.”

About the Author:
Ava Nathaniel Winter is the author of Transgenesis, a winner of the National Poetry Series. Her poetry has appeared in The Baffler, Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, New Poetry From the Midwest, Poetry International, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Ava served as a Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University and received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. She holds an M.F.A. from the Ohio State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, where she teaches in the Department of English and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
Praise for Transgenesis:
These poems of eros, erudition, and epistemologies achieve more than the sum of their parts; they hold the body in a care that’s rare in life and rarer still in words. Winter’s debut is a finely wrought gem, one that doesn’t shy away from centering the grand yet vexed idea of love—but rather expands on what love can do, what it is, and, ultimately, who it is for.—Ocean Vuong, author of Time is a Mother
In this fearless exploration of gender and identity, Ava Nathaniel Winter meditates on the ways humiliation and degradation shape us all. Navigating a path forward by engaging the pasts of Jewish forebears, those who survived the Holocaust and those who did not, Winter contemplates both the nature of desire and the global consequences of racism, sexism, transphobia, and colonialism. The poet courageously faces her own complicity in these matters of ongoing marginalization and oppression, writing with compassion and psychological acuity into the deep work of creating and maintaining an authentic self among others. The scope of Transgenesis, along with its crucial discoveries, are timely reminders of our common humanity, in all its flaws and struggles. —Kathy Fagan, author of Bad Hobby

Book Launch - Kwame Dawes - Sturge Town
2024-08-23 18:00 - 19:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Francie and Finch Bookshop is pleased to announce the date for a special book launch for esteemed author Kwame Dawes! On August 23rd at 6:00 PM, Kwame will be reading from his new book of poetry Sturge Town, hailed by Herman Sutter of the Library Journal as “filled with tenderness, curiosity, and compassion for what has been and what might be”.
We can’t wait to see you there!
Pre-Order Your Copy HERE
About the Book:
In this stunning volume, acclaimed poet Kwame Dawes explores the mythic, ancestral, and spiritual journeys that make up a life.
The site of the ruined ancestral home of Kwame Dawes’s family, in one of the earliest post-slavery free villages in Jamaica, Sturge Town is at once a place of myth and, for Dawes, a metaphor of the journeying that has taken him from Ghana, through Jamaica, and to the United States. The poet ranges through time, pursued by a keen sense of mortality, and engages in an intimate dialogue with the reader—serious, confessional, alarmed, and sometimes teasing. Metrically careful and sonorous, these poems engage in a personal dialogue with the reader, serious, confessional, alarmed and sometimes teasing. They create highly visualized spaces, observed, remembered, imagined, the scenes of both outward and inner journeys. Whether finding beauty in the quotidian or taking astonishing imaginative leaps, these poems speak movingly of self-reflection, family crises, loss, transcendence, the shattering realities of political engagement, and an unremitting investment in the vivid indeterminacy of poetry.
From “Recall”:
Oh, pipe me back to my familiar earth,
for it is slipping slowly from me.
About the Author:
Kwame Dawes is the author of numerous books of poetry and other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. Dawes is a George W. Holmes University Professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. He is a chancellor emeritus for the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Dawes is the winner of the Windham-Campbell Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In 2022, Kwame Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander class by the Government of Jamaica. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Praise for Sturge Town:
“Like one of his heroes, Bob Marley, Dawes changes not just the way readers look at the world but the lens through which they see reality. His is a transcendent vision, filled with tenderness, curiosity, and compassion for what has been and what might be.” – Herman Sutter, Library Journal
“Wise and generous, this illustrates a poetic journey toward self-understanding.” – Publishers Weekly

Visiting Author - John Janovy, Jr. PhD - Life Lessons From a Parasite: What Tapeworms, Flukes, Lice, and Roundworms Can Teach Us About Humanity's Most Difficult Problems
2024-08-24 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Author and prize-winning scientist John Janovy, Jr. PhD will be visiting Francie & Finch Bookshop to present his new book Life Lessons From a Parasite on Saturday, 8/24! You don’t want to miss this fun and educational event. We’ll see you there!
Pre-Order Your Copy of the Book HERE!
About the Book:
The answers to life’s biggest questions can be found by looking at the little things…
Life’s most profound revelations often emerge from the most unexpected sources. While sometimes imperceptible to the naked eye, parasites inhabit our everyday lives. From headlice to bird droppings, litterboxes to unfiltered water, you have crossed paths time and time again with the most common way of life on our planet—living in (and off off) other organisms. In Life Lessons from a Parasite, parasitologist John Janovy Jr., PhD, reveals what humans can learn from the most reviled yet misunderstood animals on earth.
In Life Lessons from a Parasite, Janovy discusses:
How the worm N. texomensis showed how seemingly simple problems can have solutions that defy the finest minds
How microscopic flagellate living in maggots taught him resilience
That like worms and bacteria, harmful ideas can infect our minds and those of our leaders
About the Author:
Prize-winning scientist and teacher John Janovy, Jr., PhD, is emeritus professor of biology of the University of Nebraska and lives in Lincoln, NE.
Praise for the book:
“In nature, as in society, the parasites outnumber the hosts. John Janovy Jr. offers the parasites’ view of this situation. The result is smart, funny, and all too revealing.”— Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer for The New Yorker and New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction
“This book, a love song to research scientists, is written with the hope that we ordinary humans can learn from their work. Janovy implores his readers to base their conclusions on evidence, rather than being swayed by the many infectious and false ideas in our culture. He stresses that successful organisms adapt to, rather than deny, a changing reality. And he stresses the uniqueness of every organism, no matter how small. Most of all he shows us the complexity and beauty of parasites. After reading this book, I’ll never look at mosquitos in the same way again.” — Dr. Mary Pipher, author of Letters to a Young Therapist
“Professor John Janovy Jr. is one of the one of the great thinkers in the field of parasitology, and our understanding of host parasite relationships. I’m thrilled that now he has synthesized his thinking in this important new book. It is especially timely given how students in parasitology lately go right to the molecules or the cells without the context of the whole organism biology. His new book will help remind us of what we are missing!” — Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, DSc (hon), FASTMH, FAAP, author of The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science

Visiting Author - Chris Quigg in conversation with Ken Bloom - Grace in All Simplicity: Beauty, Truth, and Wonders on the Path to the Higgs Boson and New Laws of Nature
2024-09-04 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Wednesday, September 4th, as author Chris Quigg joins in conversation with Ken Bloom about his new book Grace in All Simplicity!
To pre-order your signed copy, follow the link HERE!
About the Book:
An enthralling and accessible account of humanity’s quest to make sense of our physical world, told through interwoven tales of inspiration, tragedy, and triumph. How do the remarkable recent discoveries of the Higgs boson, dark matter, and dark energy connect with the equally revolutionary discoveries in centuries past? In Grace in All Simplicity, readers will delight in Cahn and Quigg’s engaging prose and see how the infinite and the infinitesimal are joined. Today, physicists and astronomers are exploring distances from a billionth of a billionth of the human scale to the entire cosmos, and contemplating time intervals that range from less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second out to far longer than the age of the universe. Leaving home in this metaphorical way requires devising new instruments that spectacularly expand our senses and conceiving original ways of thinking that expand our minds. This is at once an act of audacity and an exercise in humility.
Grace in All Simplicity narrates the saga of how we have prospected for some of Nature’s most tightly held secrets, the basic constituents of matter and the fundamental forces that rule them. Our current understanding of the world (and universe) we inhabit is the result of curiosity, diligence, and daring, of abstraction and synthesis, and of an abiding faith in the value of exploration. In these pages we will meet scientists of both past and present. These men and women are professional scientists and amateurs, the eccentric and the conventional, performers and introverts. Scientists themselves, Cahn and Quigg convey their infectious joy as they search for new laws of nature.
Join the adventure as scientists ascend mountain tops and descend into caverns deep underground, travel to the coldest places on Earth, and voyage back in time to near the birth of the Universe. Visit today’s great laboratories and the astounding instruments they house. Grace in All Simplicity is a thrilling voyage filled with improbable discoveries and the extraordinary community of people who make them. Together, we will travel the path to the Higgs boson, weigh the evidence for subliminal dark matter, and learn what makes scientists invoke a mysterious agent named “dark energy.” We will behold the emergence of a compelling picture of matter and forces, simple in its structure, graceful in the interplay of its parts, but still tantalizingly incomplete.
About the Author:
Chris Quigg is Distinguished Scientist Emeritus at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He graduated in physics at Yale before moving to Berkeley. He is the author of an acclaimed text on gauge theories and critical works on high-energy collisions, quarks, neutrinos, and the Higgs boson. He received the American Physical Society’s Sakurai Prize for theoretical physics and the German Alexander von Humboldt Prize.
About Ken Bloom:
Ken Bloom is Willa Cather Professor and Chair of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He is an experimental particle physicist, and has spent his career exploring the graceful phenomena described in Cahn and Quigg’s book. He has also had the pleasure of knowing Chris Quigg for nearly 30 years.
Review for the Book:
“A captivating book that reveals the interconnectedness of science’s most profound advances.” —Kirkus Reviews

“The path taken that led to our emerging view of the Universe is neither simple or graceful, but spell-binding and charming in all its human complexities.” —Professor Steven Chu, Nobel laureate, Professor of Physics, Molecular and Cellular Physiology and Environmental Science and Engineering, Stanford University
“Erudite yet accessible, Grace in All Simplicity interweaves scientific adventure with remarkable human stories. Grace is also personal, as the authors Cahn and Quigg themselves participated in—and were affected by—many of these great discoveries. This makes the book a fine embarkation for those just beginning their journey, for those already on a scientific path, or for anyone who has followed this great story.” —David Saltzberg, Professor of physics and astronomy, University of California Los Angeles, Science Consultant for The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, and Oppenheimer

Visiting Author - Bruce E. Whitacre - Good Housekeeping
2024-09-12 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Thursday, September 12th as we welcome back poet Bruce E. Whitacre to Francie & Finch Bookshop to read from his new book Good Housekeeping!
To order your copy go to the link HERE!
About the Book:
The contradictions of privilege and want, the dynamics of gay marriage, the joy of a good cocktail – all enter the mix as these 31 poems explore home, marriage, travel, war, sensuality, tea, and, yes, housekeeping. Selected as an Editor’s Pick by BookLife Reviews, Good Housekeeping includes “The Foldout Couch,” which was nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize. Some poems have appeared in The Journal of American Poetry, The Mandarin Magazine, and World Literature Today, among other places.
Mainstream audiences, LGBTQA+, and readers who are interested in social justice and climate issues will enjoy these poems. Comparative titles include Carolyn Forch ‘s In the Lateness of the World and Mark Wunderlich’s God of Nothingness.
About the Author:
Good Housekeeping is forthcoming in 2024 from Poets Wear Prada and is a BookLife Reviews Editors Pick. Bruce E. Whitacre’s debut collection, The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks, was also a BookLife Reviews Editors Pick and Indy Spotlight. It placed 2nd in Contemporary Poetry at The BookFest Spring 2023 and was a Finalist in Narrative Poetry in the American BookFest Best Book Awards 2023. Publications include The American Journal of Poetry, World Literature Today, Life and Legends, The Mandarin, Nine Cloud Journal. Published in anthologies from Southern Arizona Press (Castles and Courtyards, 2023, and The Wonders of Winter, 2022) and Milk and Cake Press (I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe, 2021). “Leave Meeting” was a sample poem in Diane Lockward’s craft book, The Strategic Poet, Terrapin Books, 2021. He has garnished nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. A Nebraska native, he lives with his husband in Queens, NY.
Prior to devoting full-time to writing, his management career included executive positions in public accounting, publishing, international economic development, banking, and theatre.

Book Launch - To the Bone - Alena Bruzas in conversation with author Kelsy Burke
2024-09-13 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us for an exciting book launch with the “Depraved Writers Club”! Alena Bruzas and author of Pornography Wars, Kelsy Burke, will launch Alena’s new novel by discussing how they handle writing dark or controversial subject matter as well as how Alena conceived of the idea of To the Bone.
To pre-order your signed copy follow the link HERE!
About the Book: YA novel for ages 14+
A young woman goes hungry—and falls in love—in the Virginia Company’s colony of James Fort.
The year is 1609, and Ellis has traveled alone across the ocean from England to be an indentured servant to Henry Collins. She’s come to seek a better life, her family back home fractured by death and poverty, but she soon learns that this land is no undiscovered Eden, ripe for the taking. Tensions are rising between the Indigenous Powhatan people and the invading European settlers, and the cruelty of claim-laying extends to Ellis’ own hearth, where Henry treats her as property and abuses both her and his pregnant wife. Meanwhile, winter draws ever closer, and with it the specter of starvation. A bright light in all this darkness is Jane, a spritely young woman who loves Ellis fiercely and shamelessly. Ellis loves her, too—as secretly as she can, given Henry’s violent disapproval. The two are friends with Rowan, a deeply kind young man who’s come to the settlement alone; he’s their companion in misadventure as they seek sustenance and survival. Bruzas pulls no punches with her lean, lyrical prose. Ellis’ voice is entirely convincing, her quiet observations of people and situations around her perfectly embedded in her own experiences even as they elucidate for a contemporary audience the brutal harm done by her settlement.
About the Author:
Alena Bruzas grew up in Seattle and currently lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with her family. She is the author of the acclaimed novel Ever Since, and she hopes her writing will find the people who need it most. When she’s not writing, Alena serves on the board for Ten Thousand Villages, Lincoln. She also occasionally cooks dinner, worries about commas, and wanders the prairie.
About author Kelsy Burke:
Dr. Kelsy Burke is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, editor-elect of Contemporary Sociology, and Public Fellow for the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). After receiving a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013, Kelsy has become a leading expert on the relationship between conservative Christianity and gender and sexual politics in the United States. Their research has been supported by multiple grants and fellowships, including an award from the National Science Foundation, and published in top scholarly journals.
Kelsy has written two books: the award-winning Christians under Covers: Evangelicals and Sexual Pleasure on the Internet (University of California Press, 2016), and The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession (Bloomsbury, 2023). Kelsy’s writing has also appeared in the Guardian, Huffington Post, Newsweek, Religion News Service, Salon, Slate Magazine, Sojourners, and the Washington Post. Kelsy lives in Lincoln with her spouse, two children, and assorted pets.

Praise for To the Bone:

★ “Ruthless and tender by turns: a triumph of historical fiction” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“A tale of graceful devastation… A chilling, unforgettable story.” —Gillian French, author of Sugaring Off and The Lies They Tell
“Alena Bruzas has spun a tale that will crawl under your skin …a unique and unforgettable read.” —June Hur, bestselling author of The Red Palace
“Brutal and gut-wrenching… Tragic, harrowing, and raw.” — Erin Bowman, author of Vengeance Road

Visiting Author - Jeff Barnes - Forts of the Northern Plains: A Guide to Military and Civilian Posts of the Plains Indian Wars
2024-09-18 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us in welcoming Great Plains historian and author Jeff Barnes to F&F Bookshop on Wednesday, September 18th at 5:30! He will be signing copies of his book Forts of the Northern Plains: A Guide to Military and Civilian Posts of the Plains Indian Wars. This new edition now features more than 150 military and civilian sites, directions, and GPS coordinates, with full-color photography and maps, and aerial shots of select sites.
To order your copy, follow the link HERE!
About the Book:
As the first official symbols of U.S. government presence on the western frontier, the forts of the northern plains were both centers of commerce and sources of conflict. The integral roles these forts played during decades of warfare with the Plains Indian tribes—and the fate of the posts after those wars ended—were essential to the expansion of the American West during this traumatic period of history.
In Forts of the Northern Plains Jeff Barnes presents an informative guidebook to the forts of the Indian campaigns of the late nineteenth century. Focusing on sites in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, Barnes includes the forts’ histories, descriptions of what remains today, directions, nearby points of interest, and visitor information for each post. This new expanded edition adds a number of federal sites designated as camps and posts, as well as civilian and militia sites that are marked. With new entries, color photographs, and updated information on the forts, as well as a rating system for traveler interests, Barnes provides an up-to-date guide of the historic military posts of the Indian Wars.

About the Author:
Jeff is a fifth-generation Nebraskan and long-time student and writer of Great Plains history. A former newspaper reporter and editor, he is the author of eight books on Great Plains subjects, including two winners of the Nebraska Book Award. He is also among the most frequently requested speakers of Humanities Nebraska, the largest speaker organization in the state, and is the first and only HN speaker to present in all 93 Nebraska counties. Since beginning as a public speaker in 2008, Jeff has made more than 800 appearances for groups in ten states. He is a past trustee of the Nebraska State Historical Society, a present trustee of the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation, past chair of the Nebraska Hall of Fame Commission, and former marketing director of the Durham Museum.
Praise for the book:
“Barnes has produced a valuable combination of history and travel guide for all students of the Northern Plains Indian Wars. A very timely, very impressive work.”—Robert M. Utley, author of The Last Sovereigns: Sitting Bull and the Resistance of the Free Lakotas
“Well written and researched, [Forts of the Northern Plains] offers a handy, carefully organized summary of many important military sites in the West.”—Barton H. Barbour, Great Plains Quarterly
“A much-needed, up-to-date guide to the critical forts of the Indian campaigns of the late nineteenth century. This book should be on the shelves of everyone with an interest in the West during this traumatic period of American history.”—Jerome A. Greene, author of Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis

Book Launch Celebratioin - Ava Nathaniel Winter - Transgenesis
2024-09-21 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Poet Ava Nathaniel Winter will be launching her new book Transgenesis at Francie & Finch Bookshop on September 21st a 4:30. We are excited to celebrate this new work, recently featured in the New York Times Book Review, and hailed by fellow authors as “fearless” and “timely”. We can’t wait to see you there!
To order a signed copy of Transgenesis, follow the link HERE!
About the Book:An excavatory collection of poems tracing the connections between Jewish transfemininity, queer desire, and cultural histories. Selected by Sean Hill for the National Poetry Series, this collection is a scrupulous chronicle of individual and cultural knowledge. In an exceptional debut, Ava Nathaniel Winter challenges our concepts of the beautiful and the sacred, delving not only into the historically marginalized, but also into the chilling subconscious of supremacy. “Let me be clear / from this beginning,” she writes, “What I mean by beauty / is a terror I have fled from / into language.”

Winter writes with a documentarian’s attention, a poet’s resonance. “I’m trying,” she admits, “to find language for what we do / to one another.” From Lódź, Poland, to predominantly white suburban America, from the space shared by queer lovers to antique cabinets filled with Nazi memorabilia, from Talmudic depictions of genderqueer rabbis to archival lynching photos, she regards the tender and the difficult with equal gravity, commemorates the fraught gift of survival.

At the heart of this collection–despite its moments of profound darkness–is a new, hard-won holiness. The “earthy aroma of rye” calling up a mother’s baking, her mother’s, hers. Belief in a lover’s lavishing. A chosen future, one where we are “reader, sibling, sister.” If Transgenesis began in fear of beauty, where it lands is this: “turning at last / to face her.”

About the Author:Ava Nathaniel Winter is the author of Transgenesis, a winner of the National Poetry Series. Her poetry has appeared in The Baffler, Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, New Poetry From the Midwest, Poetry International, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Ava served as a Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University and received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. She holds an M.F.A. from the Ohio State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, where she teaches in the Department of English and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

Praise for Transgenesis:These poems of eros, erudition, and epistemologies achieve more than the sum of their parts; they hold the body in a care that’s rare in life and rarer still in words. Winter’s debut is a finely wrought gem, one that doesn’t shy away from centering the grand yet vexed idea of love—but rather expands on what love can do, what it is, and, ultimately, who it is for.—Ocean Vuong, author of Time is a Mother

In this fearless exploration of gender and identity, Ava Nathaniel Winter meditates on the ways humiliation and degradation shape us all. Navigating a path forward by engaging the pasts of Jewish forebears, those who survived the Holocaust and those who did not, Winter contemplates both the nature of desire and the global consequences of racism, sexism, transphobia, and colonialism. The poet courageously faces her own complicity in these matters of ongoing marginalization and oppression, writing with compassion and psychological acuity into the deep work of creating and maintaining an authentic self among others. The scope of Transgenesis, along with its crucial discoveries, are timely reminders of our common humanity, in all its flaws and struggles. —Kathy Fagan, author of Bad Hobby

Charlotte's Web at Lincoln Community Playhouse - Win Tickets!
2024-09-28 08:00 - 2024-10-10 17:00 | NE
Charlotte’s Web is the story of a little girl named Fern who loved a little pig named Wilbur – and of Wilbur’s dear friend Charlotte A. Cavatica, a beautiful large grey spider who lived with Wilbur in the barn. With the help of Templeton, the rat who never did anything for anybody unless there was something in it for him, and by a wonderfully clever plan of their own, Charlotte saved the life of Wilbur, who by this time had grown up to be quite a pig.
This beloved book by E. B. White is a favorite of ours. The play, adapted by Joseph Robinette will be performed at Lincoln Community Playhouse on OCT 10-13 and OCT 18-20 and we’re giving away two free tickets!
Stop by the shop to register to win two tickets – winner announced 10/10**
E. B. White’s Newbery Honor Book is a tender novel of friendship, love, life, and death that will continue** to be enjoyed by generations to come. Order a copy HERE

**Reservations are subject to availability and tickets may be used on any Season 79 show

Visiting Author - Maura Jane Farrelly - Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent: A Story of Mystery and Tragedy on the Gilded Age Frontier
2024-09-28 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Author Maura Jane Farrelly will be visiting Francie & Finch Bookshop on Saturday, September 28th at 4:30 to discuss her new book Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent: A Story of Mystery and Tragedy on the Gilded Age Frontier. Farrelly explores these narratives as stories about the early demise of our right to be forgotten. We can’t wait to dive in further! We’ll see you there!
Order your copy of Maura Jane Farrelly’s new book HERE!
About the Book:
In Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent Maura Jane Farrelly explores the history of the Gilded Age United States, using the lives of three people from prominent East Coast families who moved to Wyoming to start over as her guide. Robert Ray Hamilton was a state lawmaker from New York and the great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton. John Dudley Sargent came from a long line of Brahmin families in New England that included several colonial governors and the famous painter John Singer Sargent. Edith Drake Sargent was the eccentric and musical daughter of a New York banker who had made a fortune selling short. All three experienced some form of humiliation after newspapers speculated on their possible shameful secrets: bigamy, blackmail, murder, incest, baby-selling, mental illness, and more. All three fled to Wyoming, believing distance and remoteness would hide their shame. But by the 1890s the West was no longer a place where anyone could hide. Just as many today are learning that the internet has opened up a vast wilderness of information to exploration and settlement—enabling our mistakes and transgressions to follow us for years—so, too, did Hamilton and the Sargents learn that technology and the growing power of celebrity journalism made it difficult for anyone in the West to leave a scandal-ridden past behind. Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent is a story about the early demise of our right to be forgotten.
About the Author:
Maura Jane Farrelly is an associate professor of American studies at Brandeis University. She has worked as a reporter in Atlanta, Washington DC, and New York. Her books include Papist Patriots: The Making of an American Catholic Identity and Anti-Catholicism in America, 1620–1860.
Praise for the book:
“Maura Jane Farrelly is a marvelous writer and gifted storyteller who brings a finely honed sense of time and place to this remarkable book. . . Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent manages to be both sweeping and intimate.”—Wendy Gamber, author of The Notorious Mrs. Clem: Murder and Money in the Gilded Age
“Maura Jane Farrelly’s historical detective work unearthed intersecting trails and unforgettable tales of murder, suicide, social scandal, and much more. . . . A remarkable work of research and storytelling, Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent proves that if a picture tells a thousand words, it can also hide thousands more.” —Dayton Duncan, coauthor of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea

Virtual Book Launch Event - Pascha Sotolongo in conversation with Timothy Schaffert - The Only Sound is the Wind: Stories
2024-10-03 19:00 - 20:00 | NE
Join us on Zoom, on October 3rd at 7:00 PM, as author Pascha Sotolongo joins in conversation with Timothy Schaffert as they celebrate her new book of stories The Only Sound is the Wind!
To register for the event follow the link HERE!
Pre-Order a copy of the book HERE!

About the Book:
In the tradition of narrativa de lo inusual (narrative of the unusual), The Only Sound Is the Wind combines the fantastic with the everyday, weaving elements of magical realism and surrealist twists to sharpen our view of human (and animal) connection. In the title story, the arrival of a mail-order clone complicates a burgeoning romance; a lonely librarian longing for her homeland strikes up an unusual relationship in the award-winning “The Moth”; when humans start giving birth to puppies and kittens in “This New Turn,” a realignment of the natural order ensues; and the narrator of “Chicory” harnesses the power of invisibility to spy on her beautiful neighbor. With a playful tenderness and satirical bent, The Only Sound Is the Wind is a lyrical exploration of solitude and communion, opening strange new worlds where characters try to make their way toward love.

About the Author:
Pascha Sotolongo is a fiction writer and college English professor who was born and raised in Florida but has called Nebraska home for more than two decades. Given to surrealism and tenderness, her writing explores themes of poverty, isolation, longing, and invisibility. She is currently finishing a novella set on the High Plains.

Praise for the Book:
These stories—these bewitching portraits of a melancholy dystopia—are spellbinding. . . . With this rich collection, Sotolongo joins the ranks of Margaret Atwood and Cristina Rivera Garza, and other masters of illusion. — Timothy Schaffert, author of The Perfume Thief and The Titanic Survivors Book ClubIn this gorgeous debut, Pascha Sotolongo lyrically blends the fantastical with stories of family, love, and longing. Within these pages are vampires, ghosts, invisible daughters, and near apocalypses, and just as readily, the stories of our secrets, our joys, our fears, and our dreams. A beautiful and spellbinding collection. — Alexander Weinstein, author of Universal Love and Children of the New WorldCaptivating. . . . Pascha Sotolongo has written a book that’s simply exceptional, filled with startling, surreal, and utterly spectacular stories that demand to be savored. — Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, author of Every Drop is a Man’s NightmareSharp and ineffable—these are immersive stories that show us how the familiar world we live in is brimming with shadowy surprises. — Manuel Muñoz, author of The ConsequencesThe intimate, incendiary stories in Pascha Sotolongo’s elegantly woven debut collection offer an ode to the grief and exhilaration of diaspora, probe the delicate shades of gray between solitude and loneliness, and hinge, ultimately, on metamorphosis. The Only Sound is the Wind is a scar shaped like Cuba—a gorgeous scar. — Joy Castro, author of One Brilliant Flame

Book Launch Celebration - Allison L. Bitz in conversation with Joan F. Smith and Laura Taylor Namey - Three Things About Emmy Crawford
2024-10-04 19:00 - 20:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us for an evening with award-winning author Allison L. Bitz! We will be celebrating Allison’s new book Three Things About Emmy Crawford! Allison will be in conversation about the book and its themes with guests Joan F. Smith and Laura Taylor Namey. We can’t wait to see you there!
Pre-Order Your Copy HERE!
About the Book:
In this coming-of-age novel perfect for fans of Lynn Painter and Rebecca Lynn Solomon, nothing can derail Emmy Crawford, the type-A daughter of a senator, from relentlessly pursuing her dreams—not Crohn’s disease, the paparazzi, or even heartbreak.

There are three things high school senior Emmy Crawford will accomplish, no matter what:
1. Taking Nationals in debate this season.
2. Shielding her sister, Issy, from anything that could hurt her, especially her anxiety.
3. Representing her family well, since her mom may be the next president.
And nothing can get in Emmy’s way. Not Crohn’s disease, even if her gut has been acting up. Not the paparazzi, who snap any photos they can get of the daughters of a presidential candidate. And definitely not her feelings for Gabe Castillo, the only debater in DC who stands a chance at beating her—and who she used to be on secret kissing terms with, before he ghosted her. When Gabe unexpectedly returns to the debate scene and Issy starts crushing on him, Emmy works harder than ever to keep her eyes on winning and off her aching heart and body, because the alternative means losing the three things that matter most.
About the Author:
Allison L. Bitz is the award-winning author of The Unstoppable Bridget Bloom and Three Things About Emmy Crawford. She hails from Lincoln, Nebraska, where she lives with her spouse and two kids. Her superpower is empathy, and she’s been known to have resting tell-me-your-life-story face. Allison holds a PhD in counseling psychology and has worked as a licensed psychologist since 2012. When she’s not working on a novel or counseling, Allison is more than likely writing a song, getting riled up about something political, or trying to track down a pastry to enjoy with her coffee. She has a soft spot for rescue animals, which are vying for species majority in her home (two perfect dogs, two ornery cats). You can learn more about Allison at allisonlbitz-author.com or follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok @AllisonLBitz.
Praise for the book:
An honest exploration of trust, family, and self-care. A senator’s daughter struggles with perfectionism amid familial, academic, and romantic tensions. — Kirkus Reviews
“THREE THINGS ABOUT EMMY CRAWFORD delivers on everything I look for in a YA novel, then delivers even more. Bitz effortlessly weaves together the day-to-day realities of chronic illness with a funny and fresh take on academic rivals-to-lovers, and it Works with a capital W! Emotional, sweet, and ridiculously swoony, this book is a must-read.” — Lynn Painter, New York Times Bestselling author
The votes are in: Three Things About Emmy Crawford wins for its sharp portrayal of real issues teens care about, sparkling debate team hijinks, and thoughtfully drawn relationships. Sisterhood and slow-burn romance meld in this delightful story. You won’t stop at three things to love about Emmy.
— Laura Taylor Namey, New York Times bestselling author of A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow
“Emmy Crawford is a heartfelt exploration of what it means to learn how to live in the body you have when challenges with sisterhood, romance, family life in politics, and a front-running spot on the debate team demands otherwise. This coming-of-age tale will resonate with readers for its sharpness, wit, and the intriguing realities of life in the public eye.” — Joan F. Smith, author of The Other Side of Infinity and The Half-Orphan’s Handbook
“Told with nuance, candor, and understanding, Bitz’s characters weave through issues of anxiety and chronic illness and a shot at debate team nationals. Readers will cheer for Emmy to be seen for her successes as well as her heart, bravery, and ability to let others into a world she’s hidden away.”—Gretchen Schreiber, author of Ellie Haycock Is Totally Normal — Gretchen Schreiber, author of Ellie Haycock Is Totally Normal

Visiting Author - Dr. Simon A. Wood in conversation with Dr. Abla Hasan - The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate
2024-10-08 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Tuesday, October 8th at 5:30 as the UNL Institute for Ethnic Studies welcomes Dr. Simon Wood and Dr. Abla Hasan to Francie and Finch Bookshop. Simon’s most recent work of translation brings the 1923 work The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate by Muhammad Rashid Rida to English-speaking professors and students for the first time.

About the Book:
A translation of Muhammad Rashid Rida’s best-known work, which examines the compatibility of Islamic political and legal tradition with modern thought.
Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865–1935) was a prominent Muslim intellectual and reformer. Born in a village near Tripoli in present-day Lebanon, he was renowned for his founding of Al-Manar, an independent and successful Islamic magazine in which he published The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate as a series beginning in 1922. The work showcased Rida’s faith in the Islamic tradition as the origin of notions such as self-determination and popular sovereignty, as well as his opposition to Western politics. A realist, he nevertheless argued that a revived Caliphate was viable and held the keys to Muslim empowerment and universal salvation.
This skillful translation by Simon A. Wood will make The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate accessible for the first time to English-speaking scholars and students of political theory and the modern Middle East.

About Simon A Wood:
Simon A. Wood is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at UNL, where he has been faculty since 2004. He has degrees from the University of Otago (pronounce: oh-taa-go) in New Zealand, and Temple University in Philadelphia. His teaching and research focus on modern Islam and comparative religious studies. His books include:
-The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate (Yale UP, 2024). This book is a translation and introduction of a 1923 book on the caliphate written in Arabic by Rashid Rida, a seminal Syrian Muslim intellectual.

-Fundamentalism: Perspectives on a Contested History (U of South Carolina Press, 2014). This book is an edited volume that discusses how the idea of religious fundamentalism has influenced our understanding of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

-Christian Criticisms, Islamic Proofs: Rashid Rida’s Modernist Defense of Islam (Oneworld, 2008; paperback 2012). This book is a translation and introduction of Rashid Rida’s 1905 book about Christianity and Islam.
About Abla Hasan:
PhD in Philosophy of Language from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2013; MA in Philosophy as a Fulbright grantee from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2009. Dr. Hasan obtained her BA in Philosophy from Damascus University/Syria in 2000, followed by a Diploma of High Studies from Damascus University in 2001. She is a native speaker of Arabic. She teaches Arabic language and culture at UNL and she is the Program’s Founder and Coordinator. Her teaching and research focus on Qur’anic Studies, Qur’anic Hermeneutics, Islamic feminism, and Arabic studies. She has published with Brill, Analize, Ar-Raniry, JIL, Disputatio, Al-Manarah, E-logos and other peer- review international journals. She is the author of: Decoding the Egalitarianism of the Qur’an: Retrieving Lost Voices on Gender (Lexington: 2019), the author of On Pain and Suffering: a Qur’anic Perspective (Lexington: 2022), and the author of The Qur’anic Dilemma: A Hermeneutical Investigation of al-Khidr (Routledge: 2022).Abla Hasan is the recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences Engagement Award for 2021, the recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award for 2022, the recipient of the 2023 Rev. Dr. Michael Combs Award for Scholars of Equality and Justice, and the recipient of UNL’s first annual Women’s and Gender Justice Award 2023.

Civil War Free Panel & Lecture Events: Dr. Jeremi Suri - Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy
2024-10-09 12:00 - 19:00 | NE
Francie & Finch Bookshop will be selling copies of author Dr. Jeremi Suri’s book Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy during and after the 12:00pm and the 7:00pm events.
Find information about the lectures below:
A HOUSE DIVIDED, POLITICS TODAY AND AMERICAN HISTORY
A PANEL DISCUSSION REFLECTING ON THE LEGACY OF THE CIVIL WAR AND TODAY’S DIVIDE IN THE UNITED STATES.
OCTOBER 9, 2024, 12 PM
Lied Commons at Lied Center For Performing Arts
FREE ADMISSION (No tickets required)
This diverse panel featuring University of Nebraska experts joined by Nebraska leaders and celebrated author Jeremi Suri, PhD will be facilitated by Dr. Will Thomas, Angle Chair in the Humanities and Professor of History at the University of Nebraska.
___________________________________
AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR: THEN AND NOW
LECTURE BY JEREMI SURI, PhD, RENOWNED HISTORIAN AND CELEBRATED AUTHOR
OCTOBER 9, 2024, 7 PM
Ethel S. Abott Auditorium at Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
FREE ADMISSION, Ticket reservation required
This free lecture by Jeremi Suri, PhD, from University of Texas-Austin, will provide a thought-provoking presentation related to A House Divided and the legacy of the Civil War. This event is presented in partnership with the Sheldon Museum of Art and is connected to the world-premiere production of the play A House Divided. Dr. Jeremi Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on contemporary politics and foreign policy, most recently Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight or Democracy. He also hosts the weekly This is Democracy podcast, which illuminates ways in which the past offers hope for the present and the future, if only we can escape the negativity of our current moment. Dr. Suri will share insights from his scholarship on the Civil War, including historical divisions in the U.S., and connections to current affairs.

Visiting Author - DeMisty D. Bellinger - All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere: Stories
2024-10-10 18:00 - 19:00 | NE
Join us as we welcome DeMisty D. Bellinger to Francie and Finch Bookshop on October 10th at 6:00!
Order a copy of All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere HERE!
About the Book:
Winner of the Barbara DiBernard Prize in Fiction
Fantastical, sensual, and as beguilingly strange as they are insightful and real, the stories of All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere are centered around intimate familial or romantic relationships, featuring protagonists who make awesome discoveries—from the beautiful to the horrible—in seemingly mundane situations. The protagonists in each story come from marginalized communities, which sometimes exacerbates their problems but always allows for unique perspectives and epiphanies.
A violinist nearly hits a bicyclist with her car on her rush to rehearsal, leading to a blissful affair and speculation about the effect of love on her violin playing. The whispering of schoolgirls leads a teacher to consider her own fears and failings. In the title story the nature of motherhood, fatherhood, and familial pride plays against a backdrop of death and high school theater.
These are stories of human frailty and newfound strengths, with surprising confrontations. The writing is rich and playful, whether the characters are coy or startlingly direct, creating worlds in which the metaphorical might become literal in the blink of an eye. DeMisty D. Bellinger finds magic in the smallest moments and makes the biggest moments resonate with a quiet intensity.
About the Author:
DeMisty D. Bellinger lives with her family in Central Massachusetts, where she teaches creative writing. She has a BA in English from University of Wisconsin-Platteville, an MFA from Southampton College, and a PhD from the University of Nebraska. She is an alum of Bread Loaf and Marge Piercy’s Intensive Writing Workshop. Also, she was a resident at the Vermont Studio Center on a fellowship and at Gullkistan in Iceland with support from friends and family.
Praise for All Daughter Are Awesome Everywhere:
“DeMisty Bellinger’s new collection is full of surprising connections, complex questions, and wonderfully human perspectives on relationships and networks of kinship. I wanted to both race through it and savor every moment.” – Ilana Masad, author of All My Mother’s Lovers: A Novel
“In All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere DeMisty D. Bellinger has gifted us a book of many worlds beneath the same roof, its stories and characters at turns brash, tender, joyous, sly, and always deeply, messily human. I loved dwelling in these pages. I loved the ride this collection took me on: one full of surprises and heart” – emily m. danforth, author of Plain Bad Heroines and The Miseducation of Cameron Post
“Bellinger’s prose is honest and unflinching. A thoughtful, observant collection of short stories from an important voice.” – June 15, 2024 Kirkus Reviews
“Infectious reading. All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere is a feast of storytelling where women—mothers, daughters, and lovers—travel the roads between a world that wishes to constrain them and the ferocious realm of their own desires.” – Elwin Cotman, author of Weird Black Girls

An Evening with Amanda Peters - The Berry Pickers** at Lincoln Highschool
2024-10-14 19:00 - 20:00 | Lincoln High School, 2229 J Street, Lincoln, United States
An Evening with Amanda Peters
A One Book One Lincoln Program
Lincoln City Libraries is excited to welcome Amanda Peters, the award-winning author of “The Berry Pickers,” this year’s One Book One Lincoln selection, for an unforgettable evening of celebration and conversation.
While this event is free, registration is encouraged. Use the link or contact your local library for assistance: 402-441-8500.
Event Highlights:
In-person interview with Amanda Peters
Audience Q&A session
Book signing opportunity
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird expressed the significance of this year’s selection. “The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters is a poignant exploration of resilience, identity, and the enduring ties that bind families together. This year’s selection invites our community to reflect on the stories that connect us all, fostering empathy and unity through shared experiences.”
Event Details:
Date: Monday, October 14, 2024, at 7 p.m.
Location: Lincoln High School Auditorium | 2229 J Street
(Enter through Door #1. Parking is available in the North lot.)
This debut novel, has captivated readers with its powerful themes of family, resilience, and identity.
AMANDA PETERS is a writer of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry. Her debut novel, The Berry Pickers is the Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction, the 2023 Barnes & Noble Discovery Prize Winner, and was shortlisted for the Barnes & Noble Book of the Year and the Atwood Gibson Fiction Award from the Writers Trust of Canada. Her work has also appeared in the Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Dalhousie Review and Filling Station Magazine. She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers’ Trust Rising Stars program. Amanda is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has a Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto.
We will have books available for purchase on-site, but pre-orders are encouraged.

Visiting Author - Stephanie Saldaña - What We Remember Will Be Saved
2024-10-18 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Friday, October 18th at 5:30 as we welcome author Stephanie Saldaña! She will be presenting her book What We Remember Will Be Saved, a portrait of Syrian and Iraqi refugees and the belongings they carry. We’ll see you there!
Order a copy of What We Remember Will Be Saved HERE!
About the Book:
2023 Christopher Award Winner
2024 Excellence in Religion Reporting Award Winner for Nonfiction
Eggplant seeds, a lullaby in a vanishing language, an embroidered dress. When people flee their homes, the things they save speak of beauty and suffering and the indomitable human spirit. In an era of mass migration in which more than 100 million people are displaced comes this lyrical portrait of Syrian and Iraqi refugees and the belongings they carry. What We Remember Will Be Saved is a book of hope, home, and the stories we hold within us when everything else has been lost. Journalist and scholar Stephanie Saldaña, who lived in Syria before the war, sets out on a journey across nine countries to meet refugees and learn what they salvaged from the ruins when they escaped. Now, in the narratives of six extraordinary women and men, from Mt. Sinjar to Aleppo to Lesvos to Amsterdam, we discover that the little things matter a great deal. Saldaña introduces us to a woman who saved her city in a dress, a musician who saved his stories in songs, and a couple who rebuilt their destroyed pharmacy even as the city around them fell apart. Together they provide a window into a religiously diverse corner of the Middle East on the edge of unraveling, and the people keeping it alive with their stories. Born of years of friendship and reporting, What We Remember Will Be Saved is a breathtaking, elegiac odyssey into the heart of the largest refugee crisis in modern history. It reminds us that refugees are storytellers and speakers of vanishing languages, and of how much history can be distilled into a piece of fabric, or eggplant seeds. What we salvage tells our story. What we remember will be saved.
About the Author:
Stephanie Saldaña is a journalist and religion scholar from San Antonio, Texas, who has spent most of the last twenty years living in the Middle East. Saldaña studied religion at Harvard Divinity School and is the author of A Country Between and The Bread of Angels, hailed by Geraldine Brooks as “a remarkable, wise, and lovely book.” Her work has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, America Magazine, and Plough, and she has been featured on National Public Radio. Saldaña and her family split their time between Bethlehem and France.
Praise:
“This outstanding book from essayist and author Saldana puts names and faces on several emigrants from Iraq and Syria, emphasizing their distinctiveness….Readers won’t soon forget the compelling stories of these brave individuals, revealed so poignantly by Saldana’s beautiful writing.” —Booklist, starred review
“Throughout this compassionate book, the author demonstrates the resilience of refugees, who carry with them their precious languages, cultures, and memories. Memorable personal stories that give much-needed depth and humanity to what are otherwise merely numbers.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Stephanie Saldaña long ago proved herself a poetic and perceptive essayist. In this book, she also proves herself a courageous one. Following refugees into the darkest and most dangerous spaces of recent history, she documents journeys that are about much more than bare survival, at once wrenching and radiant.” —Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
“Amid the ashes of war and unimaginable losses in Iraq and Syria, there is beauty, to which Stephanie Saldaña bears witness in this indelible work that should be read widely and deeply.” —Rubén Degollado, author of The Family Izquierdo

Visiting Author - Artist Edgar Jerins - Edgar Jerins Life in Charcoal
2024-10-25 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Friday, October 25th at 5:30 Edgar will be joining us to celebrate his book of art Edgar Jerins Life in Charcoal! This beautiful book exhibits Edgar’s talent for portraiture and capturing the human spirit in the hardest of times. See below for more about Edgar, his book, and praise for his work.
Order your copy of Edgar Jerins Life in Charcoal from Francie & Finch HERE!
Thank you for supporting local!
About the Book:
Forged in the crucible of family tragedy, Edgar Jerins’ monumental charcoal drawings are a towering achievement of contemporary American art. Arthur Miller commanded “Attention must be paid” and in these meticulously observed images, the artist does exactly that. His middle American subjects have been buffeted by a sea of troubles, sometimes of their own causing. Jerins brilliantly and movingly captures friends and family members at a moment when all denial has been stripped away. There is no irony here, no flippant art world in-jokes, no smug condescension and certainly no sentimentality. Jerins shows us the redemptive power of suffering, the quiet heroism of the American spirit, and our refusal to give up no matter the odds against us. The difficulties his subjects have with relationships, money, health, aging, substance abuse, violence, and death are part of the human condition that we Americans all know too well. With unflinching honesty and the kind of empathy only known by fellow travelers, Edgar Jerins brings a new realism to American art. His art is not just about life, it is life.
About the Author:
Edgar Jerins was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1958. He graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1980. His primary focus was always portraiture, whether the subject was clothed or nude. In 2001 he began a series of large-scale narrative drawings of his family and friends in crisis. The drawings received considerable attention in the form of grants, reviews, and museum exhibitions and purchases.
Artist Statement:
“I consider myself a storyteller. Capturing the times we are living through is one of my primary goals as an artist. My drawings depict real people—primarily my friends and family–in their natural environments. These are people who never expected to find themselves subjects for narrative art, but whose stories need to be told. Many are struggling with addiction and mental illness. Mental illness, in particular, is rarely discussed in our public discourse, and I want to add my voice to help create a realistic view of those suffering from it. My aim is to express the hardships of my subjects’ lives in a way that isn’t hopeless or sentimental and which shows compassion for human frailty. When possible I work from direct observation, photographing my subjects in their home environments. But my drawings merely start with images captured on film. I then heighten their reality in almost a theatrical way. My drawings, for example, are physically commanding—a scale I believe is critical to their impact on viewers. Similarly, I take great pains to position my subjects within their environment in ways that reveal and accentuate emotional resonance.”
Book Review Excerpts:
“The people haunt the places they inhabit, being in the landscape but not necessarily of it. Many of the models seem to stare at some distant, unreachable thing. They don’t engage with each other in group compositions, often but not always eschewing the viewer’s gaze as well. Even when the models do meet the viewer’s gaze, their eyes seem to look past the viewer, almost to something looming over the shoulder. Maybe this looming thing is the knowledge that we will all eventually face the empty chair, the vacant room, the street unpopulated. Life is a delicate, ephemeral thing.”
–Janet Kozachek, Visual Artist
“Jerins brilliantly and movingly captures friends and family members at a moment when all denial has been stripped away. There is no irony here, no flippant art world in-jokes, no smug condescension and certainly no sentimentality. Jerins shows us the redemptive power of suffering, the quiet heroism of the American spirit, and our refusal to give up no matter the odds against us.” –John Thornton
“I see unique things in his drawings especially, of life growing up in the Midwest. A mindset, a beauty, a bleakness, a poignancy….both despair and comfort. That is what makes them so compelling to me. It’s easy to examine the joys in life, but much braver to examine it’s imperfections.” – Ronda Klein

POSTPONED - Visiting Author Storytime - Heather Dawn Torres - The Tractor Squad
2024-10-26 15:00 - 16:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
This event has been postponed – we’ll share the new date as soon as it is confirmed.

Join us on Saturday, October 26th as we welcome author Heather Dawn Torres! She will be reading from her new storybook The Tractor Squad. This new book is described as a “bright and bouncy read-aloud”. We can’t wait to see you there to have some fun!
Order a copy HERE!
About the Book:
Illustrated by Gary Laib
“Where do tractors go when it turns cold and snows? Do they make cozy beds in their giant red sheds?”
In this bright and bouncy read-aloud, tractors dig and scoop, round up the sheep and feed the chickens . . . all before they chug and stomp, zig and zag — dancing with their farmyard friends. Then, in a second story inspired by “Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed,” count down from ten with Field Mouse, Farmer, and a colorful cast of hard-working tractors.
Oversized trim with bright candy-colored art and a full 40 pages long, The Tractor Squad will have vehicle-obsessed kids bouncing along to the playful rhythms and rhymes. For kids who love Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site and Little Blue Truck.
About the Author:
Heather Dawn Torres grew up on an Iowa farm, where she spent hours reading books to get out of doing farm chores. She now spends her days in the city dreaming of farm life and creating stories for children. When not rhyming words, Heather can be found back at the family farm enjoying long walks, homemade pies, and tractor rides. Heather currently lives in Nebraska with her husband and their two sons. Visit her online at www.heatherdawntorres.com.
Praise:
“Laugh, dance, and sing along with the Tractor Squad! An ideal storytime selection to help little ones get their wiggles out . . . Rich traditional and digital watercolor illustrations are worth lingering over, while the verse will have readers dancing and singing along.” —Kirkus Reviews

Book Launch Event with Katie Anania - Print/Draw: An Experiment on Paper
2024-11-01 17:30 - 19:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us to celebrate the release of Out of Paper: Drawing, Environment, and the Body in 1960s America, as art historian Katie Anania and artist Sophie Isaak present a durational performance that combines drawing, printmaking, and ecological thinking. Visitors are welcome to participate!
Order a copy of Out of Paper: Drawing, Environment, and the Body in 1960s America HERE.

About the Book:
A dynamic look at how artists used paper to radically redefine the relationship between the body and its surroundings, and to propose new conceptions of ecology

About the Author:
Katie Anania is an art historian who specializes in contemporary queer feminisms and ecology. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she direct Art, Data, and Environment/s, a consortium on the history and politics of data visualization.

Meet the (Flatwater Free) Press with Matthew Hansen
2024-11-03 14:00 - 15:00 | NE
Matthew Hansen, editor of the Flatwater Free Press will be back in Lincoln, at Francie & Finch, to talk journalism, hear story ideas, and also to hand out an actual physical newspaper, their annual FFP Commemorative Edition. It’s very cool. Matthew has selected a couple of his favorite Nebraska books, by FFP correspondents and FFP-connected authors like Carson Vaughan, Joe Starita, Ted Genoways, and more. We’ll also have a few copies of “The Better Half,” by Sarah Baker Hansen and Matthew Hansen about their epic Nebraska road trip.
10% of the proceeds go to Flatwater Free Press! (Including pre-orders of Ted Genoways upcoming book, Tequila Wars: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico.
About Flatwater Free Press:
***Flatwater echoes the origins of our state’s name, a translation of the Oto or Omaha words for the Platte River. The Platte of course spans the state, providing sustenance and a travel route for this land’s first human inhabitants. Today it connects Scottsbluff to Omaha and hundreds of communities between. The word is all about Nebraska, all of Nebraska, and all of our state’s history.
Free references the First Amendment. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to participate in democracy — we hold these values dear. Through journalism, we aim to hold power accountable and amplify diverse voices. Free also describes our free and open nature – anyone will be able to read our work or republish it, with no barriers.
Press is the word that the Constitution uses to assign journalists an important role in democracy. It defines our mission as one of public service. We’re here to tell stories with a purpose: Helping Nebraska realize the best version of itself.
About Matthew Hansen:
***Matthew Hansen is the editor of the Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s first statewide nonprofit news source. Hansen, a 16-year veteran of Nebraska newspapers, has previously worked as a reporter at the Lincoln Journal Star and then a reporter and metro columnist at the Omaha World-Herald. During his time in newspapers, he travelled to Cuba and Afghanistan and won multiple state, regional and national awards for investigative stories, feature stories and columns. He was the 2015 Great Plains Writer of the Year. Most recently Hansen has served as the managing editor at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, creating a new website focusing on early childhood education. The native of Red Cloud and one-time intern at the Red Cloud Chief and the Hastings Tribune now lives in Omaha and is married to Sarah Baker-Hansen, a longtime Nebraska food writer and restaurant critic. Their book together, “The Better Half” is an examination of the Nebraska’s finest road trips, restaurants and hidden stories.
***(Information obtained from flatwaterfreepress.org)

Annual $100 Shopping Spree!
2024-11-06 08:00 - 2024-12-15 17:30 | NE

Visiting Contributors - Patricia Miller, Michael M. Bartels, and James J. Reisdorff - Train Photos from Nebraska: The Vernacular Rail Images of Fred Ritter Jr.
2024-11-09 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us as we welcome contributors, Patricia Miller, Michael Bartels, and James Reisdorff, of the book Train Photos from Nebraska!
About the Artist:
Fred Ritter Jr. was a Swiss immigrant farmer living near Tilden, Neb., in the early 20th century. He was also a railroad enthusiast who took snapshot-quality images of steam and diesel locomotives, passenger trains and small-town depots during the era when trains were still essential to the way of life in small towns across both Nebraska and the U.S. As a result, these rare images serve as examples of one man’s perspective on railroading during those years. This story tells of time and place as interpreted by Fred Ritter, Jr. through photography. It also tells of Fred’s love for both trains and family, and how the two intertwined.
About the Contributors:
Patricia Miller was raised on a farm near Tilden, Neb., where she lived across the road from her paternal grandparents, Fred and Ella Ritter. Much of her childhood was spent with Fred, a Swiss immigrant whose varied hobbies included photography, railroads and travel. Although he passed away in 1975, she has sought to memorialize her multi-talented ancestor. A 1975 graduate of Doane College in Crete, Patricia spent her career teaching music in schools in Elgin and Neligh, Neb., and as a private piano teacher. Four years following the death of her first husband, Jim, she married David Shipley and they moved to Lincoln. They sing in the Plymouth Choir and Patricia still teaches piano to several students at Neligh via Zoom.
Michael M. Bartels has lived in Lincoln for most of his life, except for a short period of time in Grand Island, Neb. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and worked as a copy editor for the Lincoln-Journal. As the author or co-author of more than 20 books on railroad history, he also contributes to various newsletters and other publications of rail enthusiasts and historical groups.
James J. Reisdorff is a native and resident of David City, Neb. He is a 1978 graduate of Creighton University, with a degree in journalism. In addition to doing freelance newspaper work, he established South Platte Press in 1982 as an outlet for publishing railroad history of the Great Plains region. To date, his publishing concern has produced more than 100 titles related to railroad topics, including Train Photos From Nebraska.
Call the shop – 402 781 0459 – to order a copy!

Visiting Author: Josha Sietsma - Think. Define. Choose. How 21 Stories Shaped Life in Nebraska
2024-11-12 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
On Tuesday, November 12th please join us at Francie & Finch Bookshop as we welcome Josha Sietsma to Lincoln! Philosopher, educator, and writer, Josha created a stunning new book Think. Define. Choose. How 21 Stories Shaped Life in Nebraska, a book of true stories that all Nebraskan’s, and beyond, should hear.
To pre-order you copy, please call the bookshop at 402-781-0459
About the Book:
When you build, you hire an architect and a contractor. They will design the structure and install all the necessary components to make it function. But when you are building would you also ask a philosopher to help? That is exactly what the wise people of Nebraska did. It paid off. Not only is the Capitol a functioning structure with all the necessary components it also tells a story and guides Nebraskans and all the people who encounter it.
The design team behind the Capitol put in deep thought into the building. They thought about the values and chose what best represented Nebraskans. Then they defined what we now know as The Good Life.
This is a book about the Nebraska State Capitol and how a philosopher designed what the Nebraskans call The Good Life.
About the Author:
Josha Sietsma, author of Think. Define. Choose. How 21 Stories Shaped Life in Nebraska, wrote this book after a moment of serendipity with a building that changed the course of his life: the Nebraska State Capitol. He holds degrees in Philosophy and Education, and also completed post-academical courses on the Philosophy of Public Law. He has published poetry chapbooks, educational readers on art and philosophy, and his latest publication is a book for children young and old. Josha Sietsma lives in Bennekom, The Netherlands. He is a creative teacher, an independent researcher, and an active consultant. He teaches Political Science and Classic Japanese literature across three continents. Besides teaching he loves traveling, playing a round of golf, and playing the harmonica.
During his first visit to Nebraska he fell in love with Nebraska. The prairies. The Sandhills. Captivated by the beauty of the Nebraska State Capitol this book is an unique showcase on the state of Nebraska and the power of art and architecture:
“We do not have the past for its own sake, but for its light upon the future.” –H.B. Alexander, Philosopher of the Nebraska State Capitol
Book Details:
120 pages, full colour
5×8 inches
ISBN 9789082399752
Designed, printed and bound in the Netherlands
Design by COPPER DESIGN
Folding carton by Studio Danckmer

Poetry Reading with Greg Kosmicki and Twyla Hansen
2024-11-16 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us for a delightful poetry reading with treasured poets Greg Kosmicki and Twyla Hansen on Saturday, November 16th. Refreshments will be served, reading starts at 4:30 PM, and copies of their work will be available for purchase and signing. We’ll see you there!
About the Poets:
GREG KOSMICKI is a poet and retired social worker who lives in Omaha, Nebraska. He founded The Backwaters Press in 1997, which he now serves as Editor Emeritus. Greg’s poetry has been published in numerous magazines since 1975, both print and online, Some of his earliest publications were in Poetry NOW in 1975 and Paris Review, in 1977. Greg has continued to publish poems in literary journals including Briar Cliff Review, Chiron Review, Cimarron Review, Connecticut Review, Cortland Review, Dacotah Territory, Green Hills Literary Lantern, New Letters, Nimrod, Paris Review, Poetry East, Poetry NOW, Rattle, Smoking Poet, SolsticeLitMag, Paddlefish, and Windless Orchard. He received artist’s fellowships for his poetry from the Nebraska Arts Council 2000 and 2006. He is the author of four books and 8 chapbooks of poems. Two of the poems from his book from Word Press, Some Hero of the Past, and one poem from his chapbook from Pudding House Publications, New Route in the Dream, have been selected by Garrison Keillor and read by him on The Writer’s Almanac on Minnesota Public Radio.
TWYLA HANSEN was born and raised in northeast Nebraska. She was raised on the farm her grandparents had purchased as immigrants from Denmark in the late 1880s. Hansen earned her BS in horticulture and MA in agroecology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, including How to Live in the Heartland (1992), Sanctuary Near Salt Creek (2001), and Potato Soup (2003), which won the Nebraska Book Award for poetry. Hansen collaborated with rancher and writer Linda Hasselstrom on the collection Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet (2011); the book won the Nebraska Book Award in poetry and was a finalist for the Willa Literary Award and the High Plains Book Award. Hansen’s writing has appeared widely in periodicals and anthologies. She is a creative writing presenter through the Speakers Bureau of the Nebraska Humanities Council. In 2013, Hansen was appointed Nebraska State Poet. She lives and works in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Downtown Lincoln's 17th Annual Shop the Blocks 2024
2024-11-21 17:30 - 21:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
The holiday season is quickly approaching and your favorite shopping event is back! Downtown Lincoln’s boutiques, book stores, art galleries, specialty shops, and stores are open late just for you. On November 21st, take your opportunity to get access to the VIP Passport to enjoy special discounts, giveaways, and more.
Pick up your VIP Shop the Blocks bag & passport at our check-in location at the Rococo Theatre (140 N 13th St) by showing your e-ticket on your phone. Shop from 4:30-9pm and then attend the after party at the Rococo.
There are so many prize opportunities! For every $20 you spend at a participating business, you will be entered to win 100s of dollars in gift cards. If you purchase a gold tier ticket, you can party at the Rococo, enter to win raffle prizes, and enjoy appetizers and a cash bar. If you want to enter to win the grand prize at one of our amazing downtown hotels, take a photo of yourself (or your group) in front of or inside all of the shops listed on your passport, and send that to shoplocal@downtownlincoln.org. Thank you to The Kindler Hotel and Boitano’s Lounge for sponsoring this year’s grand prize. Questions about this event? Contact maggie@downtownlincoln.org
Check out our tiered ticketing prices this year:
SILVER TICKET: $5
Access to in-store discounts at select downtown stores, VIP shopping bag, chance to win an overnight stay at an amazing downtown hotel, chance to win shopping points prizes, free rides on pedicabs throughout the night
GOLD TICKET: $10
Access to in-store discounts at select downtown stores, VIP shopping bag, chance to win an overnight stay at an amazing downtown hotel, chance to win shopping points prizes, free rides on pedicabs throughout the night, entry to after party at the Rococo Theatre, opportunity to enter for gift card prizes, complimentary appetizers, cash bar
Ticket sales will end the day before the event, November 20th, at midnight. They will be available again day-of at the door at a higher price – Silver $7 and Gold for $12
Buy your tickets here!
PARTICIPATING BUSINESSES
Fly Fitness | Francie & Finch | Gomez Art Supply | Kiechel Fine Art | Lied Center for Performing Arts | Lincoln Running Company | Madida | A Novel Idea Bookstore | Raygun | Ruby Begonias | Threads | Tsuru | UBT Makers Market | Underground Printing

SHOP SMALL HOLIDAY REPORT CARD
2024-11-23 08:00 - 2024-12-15 17:00 | NE
We are lucky to be in the company of these amazing shops! Shop Small this holiday season and be sure to get stickers on your Holiday Report Card!
Francie & Finch Bookshop
Tsuru
Gomez Art Supply
Paper Kite
Butterfly Bakery
Threads
Ruby Begonias
Of The Earth
Pattino
Curio

Spend $25 or more at any shop and get a sticker for your Report Card. Collect 8 stickers and drop your card off at Tsuru for a chance to win the Grand Prize – $600 value or Second Prize – $300 value! The first 12 lucky people to collect 8 stickers and return them to Tsuru will win a $25 gift certificate from a participating business. Turn cards in by 12/14. Winners announced 12/15.
We say,
Shop Early
Shop Often
Shop Small
Tis the Season!

Visiting Author - Inside Nebraska Courthouses - Dean Settle
2024-12-14 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us as we welcome local art collector, historian, and former gallery owner, Dean Settle to Francie & Finch Bookshop on Saturday, December 14th at 4:30! His new book “Inside Nebraska Courthouses” explores the cultural and architectural legacy of Nebraska’s 93 courthouses.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
This book is more than just a history—it’s a celebration of Nebraska’s cultural and architectural legacy. Through short narratives, photographs, and illustrations specific to the state’s 93 counties, it offers a unique window into the landmarks that define the state. A must-have for anyone who appreciates regional history, architecture, or the stories that shape a place.
Each of Nebraska’s 93 courthouses tells a unique story, embodying the values, challenges and triumphs of the communities they serve. This book honors those stories and illustrates why preserving these historic structures is essential for future generations. This collection also celebrates the remarkable journey of Dean B. Settle and his late wife, Harriet R. Grossbart, who traveled Nebraska to visit each courthouse. Their adventure reflects a deep passion for history, community and the enduring significance of these civic spaces. May these pages inspire a renewed appreciation for the architectural and historical treasures found in every corner of Nebraska. – Candace Meredith, deputy director, Nebraska Association of County Officials.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Dean B. Settle – Dean and his late wife, Harriet, were devoted partners in both life and work. Originally from Iowa, Dean earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Northern Iowa and pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin and DePaul University. Over a distinguished 51-year career in behavioral health, Dean worked across Iowa, Kansas and California before moving to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1989. He managed extensive systems of care, including hospitals and clinics at state and county levels, and was actively involved in state and national rehabilitation associations. For 37 years, he served as a surveyor for the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). A passionate art collector and former gallery owner, Dean continues to reside in Lincoln, where he is actively involved in Rotary Club #14 and other nonprofit organizations. His research for this book gave him the opportunity to reconnect with Nebraska’s county officials and delve into the state’s rich architectural heritage.
Harriet R. Grossbart – Born in New York and raised in South Miami, Harriet graduated from the University of Florida before relocating to Nebraska in 1972 to work for Lancaster County. Her career was dedicated to supporting individuals with developmental disabilities, serving as a teacher, administrator and advocate. After retiring, Harriet co-founded a significant payee service company and played a key role in developing a foundation that manages special needs trusts. She also wrote legislation and manuals and contributed to professional journals. Harriet was an avid domestic and international traveler who delighted in exploring small towns and unwinding in the Sand Hills in her adopted home state. She lost a long battle with cancer in November 2023, leaving a legacy of advocacy and a final wish for her husband of 35 years to complete their passion project.
Book details:
192 pages, hardcover
$39.95 + shipping and handling*
Edited by Chris Christen
Designed by Christine Zueck-Watkins
