Visiting Author - Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder - Mother, Creature, Kin: What We Learn from Nature's Mothers in a Time of Unraveling
2025-06-26 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Essayist Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder will be visiting Francie & Finch Bookshop on June 26th at 5:30! Steinauer-Scudder’s new book Mother, Creature, Kin, described as “heartachingly beautiful” by writer Kerri ní Dochartaigh, is a work of non-fiction that you don’t want to miss.
Purchase your copy of Mother, Creature, Kin HERE!
About the Book:
Luminous nonfiction about the natural world from essayist Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder, who asks: what can other-than-human creatures teach us about mothering, belonging, caregiving, loss, and resiliency?
What does it mean to be a mother in an era of climate catastrophe? And what can we learn from the plants and creatures who mother at the edges of their world’s unraveling?
Becoming a mother in this time means bringing life into a world that appears to be coming undone. Drawing upon ecology, mythology, and her own experiences as a new mother, Steinauer-Scudder confronts what it means to “”mother”” to do the good work of being in service to the living world. What if we could all mother the places we live and the beings with whom we share those places? And what if they also mother us?
In prose that teems with longing, lyricism, and knowledge of ecology, Steinauer-Scudder writes of the silent flight and aural maps of barn owls, of nursing whales, of real and imagined forests, of tidal marshes, of ancient single-celled organisms, and of newly planted gardens. The creatures inhabiting these stories teach us about centering, belonging, entanglement, edgework, homemaking, and how to imagine the future. Rooted in wonder while never shying away from loss, Mother, Creature, Kin reaches toward a language of inclusive care learned from creatures living at the brink.
Writing in the tradition of Camille Dungy, Elizabeth Rush, and Margaret Renkl, Steinauer-Scudder invites us into the daily, obligatory, sacred work of care. Despair and fear will not save the world any more than they will raise our children, and while we don’t know what the future holds, we know it will need mothers. As the very ground shifts beneath our feet, what if we apprenticed ourselves to the creaturely mothers with whom we share this beloved home?
About the Author:
Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder is the author of MOTHER, CREATURE, KIN (Broadleaf Books, 2025). She grew up in the Great Plains of Nebraska and Oklahoma. After receiving her masters of theological studies at Harvard Divinity School, her writing became focused on the confluence of relationship to place with experiences of the sacred. From 2017-2022, she worked as a staff writer and editor for Emergence Magazine, an online and print publication exploring the intersection of culture, ecology, and spirituality. Her writing can also be found in The Atlantic, The Common, The Slowdown, Decor Maine, Crannóg Magazine, EcoTheo Review, From the Ground Up, CooNoor&Co, the edited poetry collection Writing the Land, and in Katie Holten’s The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape. She lives with her family in Rochester, Vermont.
For more information about the author, visit her website HERE.

Visiting Poets - Tyler Michael Jacobs & Maria Nazos
2025-06-28 16:30 - 18:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us as we welcome Tyler Michael Jacobs and Maria Nazos! Both of these talented poets will be reading from their newest works. We can’t wait to see you there!
To order a copy of The Weight of Drought, follow the link HERE!
To order a copy of PULSE, please call Francie & Finch Bookshop at 402-781-0459!
ABOUT THE BOOKS:
PULSE cuts open arteries of a troubled world and inspects what makes us bleed, suffer, and perish. It demonstrates how we overcome difficulties, even when it hurts to breathe. PULSE interrogates the personal, from the loss of friends to cancer, and the Republican party, to hate crimes, and mass shootings, including that of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub. The poems examine the life force that continues to beat relentlessly through a fragmented world. It seeks out the tiny music of our bodies that continues to pulse, breathe, and regenerate, even through grief and loss. From Provincetown beaches and Costa Rican crab shacks, to Midwestern plains, and a Tampa nightclub, the collection rides a carousel of madness, redemption, and love.
In The Weight of Drought, Jacobs reaches toward the natural world with compassion, nudging the muzzle of a horse with the back of his hand, bottle-feeding an abandoned calf, and watching chickens take flight; to get there, these poems must acknowledge the cruelty of the natural world, the relationship between drought and flood, and question what meaning lies behind dying. With landscapes and intimacy, these poems capture what it means to connect by digging in the soil, feeding another, and holding. Through devotions, pastorals, and still lifes, The Weight of Drought looks at the duality of beauty and ugliness, love and violence to explore what it means to be whole.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Maria Nazos is a Greek American poet raised in Athens. Kaveh Akbar chose her work as a Palette Poetry Contest winner. Her poetry, translations, and essays are published in The New Yorker, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. She’s the author of PULSE (forthcoming from Omnidawn in 2026) and the translator of A Slow Horizon that Breathes (World Poetry Books, 2023), a collection of poems from Greek poet Dimitra Kotoula. She has worked every job imaginable, including a disastrous, three-day stint as a table dancer in Mykonos. She quit after she realized she had lost too many friends. Find her at www.marianazos.com.
Tyler Michael Jacobs is the author of The Weight of Drought (Stephen F. Austin State University Press) and Building Brownville (Stephen F. Austin State University Press). His words have appeared or are forthcoming in Passages North, Variant Literature, Plainsongs, Pidgeonholes, Sierra Nevada Review, and elsewhere. His poems have also been featured on Nebraska Public Media’s Friday LIVE. He received his MFA from Bowling Green State University.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOKS:
Advance praise for “PULSE” and other works
“I love the journey this poet takes me on, the fullness of its vision. Granular to cosmic, miraculous, magical thinking to an egg balancing on a single nail. The poem feels subtly but densely peopled, too. It’s its own ecosystem, this love.” —Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of the novel Martyr! and poetry collections Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Pilgrim Bell
“Luscious psalms to divine recklessness, the poems in Maria Nazos’s PULSE wear their formal brilliance lightly, leaping and pirouetting with raw, gritty grace and a clear-eyed love of our human brokenness, from which they never flinch. A marvel.” –-Joy Castro, author of One Brilliant Flame, Flight Risk, and Island of Bones
Maria Nazos in PULSE has written for the world a seismic, incandescent tribute to life. It is devotional with a ferocious tenderness. Here is a poet who can and has resurrected ghosts in our veins—the parents destined to drown in quiet despair, and the lovers who linger like bruises. This collection doesn’t flinch from darkness or the suffocating weight of grief. Yet Nazos transforms pain into a strange, stubborn grace. From the cliffs of Delphi to the cornfields of Nebraska, she maps a world where history bleeds into the present. Her voice is both elegy and rebellion, hymn and rhyme. To read PULSE is to touch the “dirty human sweetness” of existence itself: flawed, forgiving, and furiously alive.” —Saddiq Dzukogi, author of Your Crib, My Qibla and Bakandamiya: An Elegy
Advance praise for The Weight of Drought
“The Weight of Drought is an exploration of emptiness as the prerequisite of creation. It is the place in which ‘idea’ (often synonymous with longing) acts as a generating force, not unlike light, water, dirt. This is the bravest kind of poetry because it has to work with almost nothing—a whisper, a gesture, a world of shadows and dearth; it is a ‘drought’ aesthetic that can’t rely on the vivacity of words. The poet must find ‘weight’ in the barest semblance of song, much as a mime must communicate solid, technicolored structures with apparitions and signs. And yet, as Jacobs’s labor unfolds across these pages like a blossom-cathedral, we know we are floating with the divine, receiving the first breath, the starter seed of everything, where ‘what you love takes shape/inside your chest’ and demands that you live.” —Larissa Szporluk, author of Virginals
“In The Weight of Drought, Tyler Michael Jacobs reconsiders the word ‘landscape’ as relentlessly inclusive. Yes, the reader will find the blurry fields of the horizon here, but also the innumerable petals of previously unknown plants, the spit from a grasshopper’s mouth, the yearning ghosts of horses and fathers. Whether Jacobs is excavating a core memory or illuminating the silence of a present moment, love and loss are bonded at the center of each poem, and despite having a keen sense of place and human experience, many of these poems float in the dreamlike realm of ‘if.’ Jacobs has the nerve to write about the ‘soul’ and of ‘God,’ but always in the context of yearlings or flowers or Fords. This book is sinewy, deeply observant, heartfelt—and it has the rust and dirt and sky of the Great Plains and the Midwest planted in its bones.” —Dan Rzicznek, author of Settlers
“So much sky in this book, so much earth and water. And what between? Snow, rain, their absence. The weight of drought is distance, is loneliness, is emptiness. In this book, Tyler Michael Jacobs reminds us how to fill such silent spaces: with singing, with dreaming, with care, with faith that our prayers will lead to green fields. Yes, the world is burning and barren, but these poems are an incantation against harm: a call to pay attention to the fragile beauty around us lest we lose it. In other words: look at the fucking flowers.” —Amorak Huey, author of Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy

Author Visit - Dusty & Erin Stanczyk - The Happy Healthy Plant-Based Cookbook: 75+ Colorful Recipes to Nourish Your Whole Body, Feed Your Family, and Have Fun Along the Way
2025-07-02 17:30 - 18:30 | NE
Help us welcome these two Lincolnites back to town!
ABOUT THE BOOK:
With a title that will remind readers of Kathy Patalsky’s Healthy, Happy Vegan Kitchen and family photos that evoke the wholesome, veggie-forward, kid-friendly approach taken in Ilene Godofsky Moreno’s The Colorful Kitchen and Dreena Burton’s Plant-Powered Families, this new book will attract parents interested in all things wellness. The authors take a slightly more movement- and lifestyle-centered approach than some family cookbooks, using a framework focused on how to live purposefully by eating, moving, and resting with purpose. The book’s focus on foundational habits is rooted in their own health journeys and draws on lessons they’ve learned about the improvements that come from intentional choices, especially when it comes to taking moments of mindfulness throughout the day. The 30-day plan laid out here includes meal plans, mindfulness-based activities, exercises with variations for degrees of fitness and experience, and prompts for reading, writing, connecting, and reflecting. They’ve used a structure that focuses first on nutrition, then movement, and finally mindfulness so that readers can habit-stack in sustainable ways. Even parents who can’t imagine adding spirulina to lemonade to make it into “mermaid juice” will find playful, colorful takes on healthy foods that will meet nutritional needs while satisfying kids’ taste preferences.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Erin and Dusty Stanczyk are certified health and lifestyle coaches, and creators of the lifestyle brand and website, EatMoveRest.com. Together with their two children, Max and Liv, and their Bernese Mountain Dog, Beau, they inspire and empower others to get back to the basics, by doing the 3 things we all do every day, better–eat, move, and rest. They live in Florida.

Order Signed Copies HERE

Visiting Author - Pamela Carter Joern - At the Corner of Past & Future: A Collection of Life Stories
2025-07-12 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
On Saturday, July 12th, author Pamela Carter Joern will be visiting Francie & Finch Bookshop to celebrate her new book At the Corner of Past & Future: A Collection of Life Stories!
Order a copy of At the Corner of Past & Future HERE!
About the Book:
With keen observation and deep reflection, Pamela Carter Joern probes her life. No topic is too small or too sacred, from gutting chickens to Gaudí’s cathedral. Through a range of experiences—growing up in rural Nebraska, raising children, surviving cancer, becoming a writer—she explores the tenuous link between memory and truth. Joern displays a gift for mining wisdom through surprising connections, juxtaposing her father’s life to the discoveries of Isaac Newton or the writer’s task to the ancient art of alchemy. She weds philosophical insight and spiritual imagination and laces this amalgam with candor and wit, resulting in a work that is engaging, intimate, and illuminating.
About the Author:
Pamela Carter Joern is the author of four works of fiction: Toby’s Last Resort, In Reach, The Plain Sense of Things, and The Floor of the Sky, all published by the University of Nebraska Press. She has written six plays that have been produced in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and taught writing at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis for ten years.
Praise for At the Corner of Past and Future: A Collection of Life Stories
“The Nebraska voice of Pamela Carter Joern shines like the stars in the vast dome of her natal sky, at once lyrical and straightforward. With sharp observation, tenderness, and wry humor, her collected stories and essays carry us irresistibly from a three-year-old’s memory of a red couch by a window to wise and surprising meditations on mortality in a wider world. It’s a wonder and a gift.”—Gayla Marty, author of Memory of Trees: A Daughter’s Story of a Family Farm
“Pamela Carter Joern delivers what I want from a well-crafted memoir in essays: emotional honesty, unstinting candor, lyrical writing, artful storytelling, attention to context, and a deep and fearless questioning of what she knows, or thinks she knows, about herself and her place in the world.”—Lisa Knopp, author of What the River Carries and The Nature of Home
“Pamela Carter Joern shows us the big sky in this affective and eloquently written collection. The big sky of a Great Plains childhood. The big sky of flying leaps, finding meaning, and facing mortality. The big sky of Nebraska itself, a necessary landscape that pulls her home, holds her steady, and keeps letting her leave and return again. These heartrending essays about place, personhood, and the passage of time invite us to bask in all our big skies of troubled and ecstatic living.”—Barrie Jean Borich, author of Body Geographic and Apocalypse, Darling

August First Friday Celebration with artist Tom Sheppard
2025-08-01 17:30 - 19:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us as we welcome back beloved local artist Tom Sheppard as he shows his watercolor collection inspired by the landscape and culture of New Mexico and Georgia O’Keeffe. We will be open late, until 7:30, for a reception during Lincoln’s First Friday Art Walk on August 1st! We can’t wait to see you there!
About the Show:
“The watercolors in this show are primarily from a trip I took with my son, Aaron, the summer after he graduated from high school. We went to Santa Fe, Taos, Abiquiu (home of Georgia O’Keeffe) and many out of the way places in New Mexico, Colorado and Nebraska. On that trip we painted various locations, wrote poetry and prose, and sampled an excellent assortment of food. We were fortunate enough to be able to rent a 120 year-old adobe in the hills above Abiquiu that had been modernized recently (painting of it is in this show). There will be a book of our trip on display as well.”
About the Artist:
Tom Sheppard grew up in Harvard, Hastings, Fullerton, Neligh and Kearney, Nebraska, as well as Culver City and Monrovia, California. He graduated from Manilla (IA) High School in 1964 and then attended Hastings College, graduating with a B.A. in Art Education with supporting areas in English and coaching (physical education). In art he studied under Richard Brink, Gary Coulter and Anne Kingsbury. He has taken numerous hours of studio art from the University of Iowa (Iowa City), the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Concordia University (Seward, NE). He received his M.A. in Art Education from UNL, and spent many years teaching art, coaching, and painting.
Note from the Artist:
“After graduating from Hastings College I began my teaching career but I also began painting in earnest, having discovered it to be the most enlightening activity I had encountered. I began entering competitions with my paintings and maintained as rigorous of a schedule as I could, trying to experiment and refine my work. I have always considered watercolor a favorite and use it to advance my technique and develop better hand-eye coordination. Many examples of my watercolors will be considered to be representational (but rarely what I consider to be realistic). Most of my larger paintings on canvas are abstract and non-objective. Even so, I consider my time painting in watercolor as my primary method to further enhance my skill, even on the larger more abstract work. The Sheldon and the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA) both have examples of my work in their holdings.”

Acoustic Performance and Book Signing - Brad Colerick and Scott Feldmann - Zintka!: Lost Bird of Wounded Knee - Zintkála Nuni
2025-08-07 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
On Thursday, August 7th, musician and author Brad Colerick will be visiting Francie & Finch Bookshop to sign books and perform an acoustic set of songs that he has written! His new book Zintka! began as a song about a Lakota infant who survived the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee and the ensuing three-day blizzard. She was miraculously found alive — saved by the warmth of her mother’s dying body. The song was turned into an award-winning short film with his creative partner Scott Feldmann who will also be joining us at the event! The book also contains artwork from the film as well as sheet music (in lead sheet form) to the song. You don’t want to miss this unique event and the fascinating story of Zintkála Nuni!
To order a copy of the book call Francie & Finch Bookshop at 402-781-0459.
About the Book:-
A true story of “found and lost” . . . and found again. Zintka! tells the troubled tale of a Native American girl caught between two worlds, accepted by neither. A Lakota (Sioux) baby and her mother who were fleeing for safety became victims in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. The baby was found four days after a South Dakota blizzard, alive by the warmth of her mother’s dead body. She was adopted by a prominent soldier and his famous suffragette wife to be raised in their white, high-society circles. Zintka was not accepted there because of racial prejudices in the era of forced assimilation. Neither was she was accepted by her own people when she sought out her roots, in part because she did not speak their language.
Named “Lost Bird” at the moment she was separated from her Lakota caregivers, Zintka was chronicled in newspapers from her discovery to her death. She attempted to succeed in show business, joining Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, San Francisco’s vaudeville circuit and as an extra in Hollywood silent films. Zintka died in the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920 and was buried in a pauper’s grave in Hanford, California. Finally, in 1991 her story was discovered through efforts of her biographer Renée Sansom Flood. Lakota leadership from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota ceremoniously reburied her at the Wounded Knee Monument, near the mass grave of the disaster, which included her birth mother.
The name “Lost Bird” came to describe Native American children adopted off the reservation by non-Indians after the publication of her biography “Lost Bird: Spirit of the Lakota” (Scribner, 1995).
About the Artist:
When he’s not on the road playing music, Brad Colerick splits his time between South Pasadena, California and his Rocky Mountain getaway in Fraser, Colorado. The Nebraska native writes songs that seep into your heart with a single listen. His full-hearted lyrics find the poetry in everyday language. He built a successful career making music for commercials where he wrote and produced ditties recorded by such musical icons as BB King, Buddy Guy, and Johnny Cash. He has earned an Emmy Award, a London International Advertising Award Billboard Magazine, and other industry accolades. Billboard Magazine called him “one of a baker’s dozen of acts to watch in the folk community around the world.” Colerick’s albums land firmly in the Americana wheelhouse with guest appearances by Suzy Bogguss, Chris Hillman, and April Verch.
Contributor Bio and Statement on Illustrations:
Scott Feldmann is an artist and animator who just returned to his first craft after a 35-year detour. A Disney artist for a decade, right after college at R.I.T., was followed by another decade heading up the creative agency Magic Pencil. Yet another decade passed with Scott at the helm of a small-town Chamber of Commerce, leading to a partnership with Brad Colerick and the creation of the South Pasadena Eclectic Music Festival and Arts Crawl. During the Pandemic, a Saturday class at Art Center and an inspiring song by Brad Colerick led to Scott’s directorial debut, as an animator, in the creation of a music video Manzanar (Yuki). The two now collaborate regularly, having formed the Deep Magic Song & Drawing Co. Feldmann lives in Pasadena, California
“For the book and short film Lost Bird (Zintkála Nuni) I leaned into the genre of ledger art as a way of paying respect to the Lakota culture. The artwork is derived from old newspaper articles and archival photographs. It’s a technique we’ve come to call “animontage” – a combination of animation and montage. We’re proud to have been called out by BookLife as “A stunning recreation of Zintkála Nuni’s story”. Both Brad and I are drawn to investigate and tell stories about lesser known historic figures who have overcome struggles to thrive in life.”
Praise for the book:
“This stunning YA debut transcends the confines of a single book, as the authors . . . employ song, ledger art, winter counts, and film with exquisite, emotionally charged images, ensuring that Zintka’s story will never be forgotten.” – BookLife Review, Editor’s Pick
“I love the book… it tells such an important story with empathy and precision.” – Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of 11 books including 4 New York Times bestsellers
“Zintka mashes together Brad Colerick’s haunting, thought-stimulating song with Scott Feldmann’s dancing, juxtaposed visual imagery into a compelling portrayal.” – Steve Fjeldsted, Director of Library, Arts, and Culture, South Pasadena Public Library from 2006 – 2019
“You have an amazing way of presenting history, and that needs to be shared broadly!” – Chris Hochstetler, Executive Director – Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer

Visiting Writers - Abby E. Murray in conversation with Ava Winter
2025-08-08 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Friday, August 8th as poet Ava Winter talks with Abby E. Murray about their second poetry collection Recovery Commands. Selected out of 300 entries as the 2024 winner of the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize, this book explores the intersection of military and civilian life.
To order a copy of Recovery Commands, call Francie & Finch Bookshop 402-781-0459!
Early Praise for Recovery Commands:
Murray gets your attention, but not in the way you’re thinking, not up in your face, but through every crack in your soul; the incantation heals what needs healing. – Gary Copeland Lilley, author of Raven on Moaners’ Bench
About the Book:
Recovery Commands is a book of poems about the collision of military and civilian life found inside one loving, long-term, and contradictory marriage. Two people, each informed by and embedded within cultures that would seem to be at odds with one another, somehow hold fast to each other through decades of war and its lasting legacies. Recovery Commands is an instruction manual for how to love despite the practical reasons not to.
About the Authors:
Abby E. Murray (they/them) is the editor of Collateral, a literary journal concerned with the impact of violent conflict and military service beyond the combat zone. Their first book, Hail and Farewell, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Abby served as the 2019-2021 poet laureate for the city of Tacoma, Washington, and currently teaches rhetoric in military strategy to Army War College fellows at the University of Washington.
Ava Nathaniel Winter is the author of Transgenesis, which was a winner of the National Poetry Series. Her poetry has appeared in The Baffler, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry International, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Ava holds an MFA From the Ohio State University and a PhD from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, where she teaches in the Department of English and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Learn more at www.avanwinter.com.

Book Launch Party - Dr. Addison Killeen’s - The Shift: A Leadership Fable of the Transition from Overwhelm to Focus
2025-08-21 17:30 - 19:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us for the official launch and signing event!
Come celebrate the release of Dr. Addison Killeen’s newest book, The Shift: A Leadership Fable of the Transition from Overwhelm to Focus—a transformational story for leaders in business and beyond. In a world full of distractions, burnout, and reactive decision-making, this book offers a refreshing blueprint for regaining control and building systems that restore clarity, focus, and joy in leadership.
This compelling fable follows a young dentist who is on the verge of burnout—until he meets a mentor who introduces him to a new way of thinking and operating. Blending story, strategy, and soul, The Shift is already resonating with leaders nationwide:
“A powerful leadership fable with great insights, reminders, and practical advice in becoming a more effective leader coupled with the development and practical application of the necessary systems to ensure a thriving enterprise. Well done, Addison!” —James Hunter, author of the internationally best-selling book The Servant
“So often we don’t reach out when we need help—finding the right person to serve as a mentor can be of immense help. This book demonstrates the importance of having a person who cares, who has certain expertise to provide insight and encouragement.” —Tom Osborne, Former U.S. Congressman and National Champion Football Coach
Meet the author, get a signed copy, and watch a Q&A with the Author interviewed by Dan Parsons.
Drinks and light refreshments will be provided.
No RSVP required—just bring a friend and your curiosity.
Pre-order your copy HERE

Visiting Author - Brandon Scranton - Secrets in the Shadows of House Nassau
2025-08-22 17:30 - 19:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Author Brandon Scranton will be visiting Francie & Finch Bookshop on August 22nd at 5:30 to celebrate his new book Secrets in the Shadows of House Nassau! He will be doing a reading and signing copies of his book. Read about this exciting new book below!
To pre-order a copy of Brandon’s new book, follow the link HERE, or call Francie & Finch Bookshop at 402-781-0459!
About the Book:
In the shadows of the House Nassau, secrets hide in plain sight! In June 1920, sixteen-year-old Michael Nassau’s life transforms as his father, Robert, inherits the title of Earl Nassau and the grand House Nassau. But beneath the palace’s opulent façade, a dark plot unfolds.
The disappearance of footman Antoon leads to a horrifying discovery: blood in the laundry and a brutal murder. As the renowned Brigadier Johannes de Groot investigates, a chilling connection to a mysterious figure emerges. Michael, recovering from an attempted kidnapping, and his father race against time to expose a sinister political conspiracy.
Every hidden passage and every family secret holds a piece of the puzzle.
Will the truth be uncovered before the shadows of House Nassau claim another victim?
“Secrets in the Shadows of House Nassau” is a captivating mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.
About the Author:
Brandon Scranton was raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, where a deep-rooted sense of public service and a fascination with history helped shape his path as both a first responder and a writer. With over 29 years of experience as a Critical Care Paramedic, Brandon has served in a wide range of roles – from 911 metropolitan and county-based EMS to helicopter flight paramedicine and hospital-based critical care. He has also proudly served for 15 years as a Reserve and Part-Time Police Officer.
Brandon’s lifelong interest in his Dutch and English heritage, paired with frequent travels to the Netherlands, inspired the creation of his debut novel, Secrets in the Shadows of House Nassau – a historical murder mystery set against the backdrop of a royal Dutch estate.
In September 2025, Brandon will be relocating permanently to the Netherlands, where he will continue writing and researching for the second installment in the series.

Book Launch Celebration - Jaye Viner - The Island of Dreams
2025-08-23 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Come on down to Francie & Finch Bookshop as we welcome back author Jaye Viner! We will be celebrating her new fantasy novel The Island of Dreams!
To pre-order, follow the link HERE!
About the Book:
When a young woman casts a love spell to snare an eligible young bachelor, she mistakes Peter Pan as the spell’s target and tricks him into choosing for The Neverland instead of her prettier friend. Little does she know, their bargain means her death. The ISLAND OF DREAMS is an epic fantasy with death gods, disability, and utopia gone wrong, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Alix E Harrow, Peter Pan, George MacDonald, and Penny Dreadful. At first glance, the island looks like paradise. Justine might be dead, but this afterlife is better than living. She spends her days playing mother to a group of boys, telling them stories, going on adventures. For the first time in her life, Justine feels like the girl she is, and she’s a god’s object of infatuation—even if he’s a little immature. But when Mak’s estranged brother leads a gang of pirates to invade the island, bringing with them Time, which spreads in ripples across her paradise, she understands Pan will no longer love her if she ages into a woman. His offer to bond with her to create a magical barrier against the pirates is hardly a choice. Only later does she begin to understand how she has been deceived. Trapped between two immortal brothers, between passing Time and the promise of the childhood she never had, Justine must discover a power greater than the gods in order to heal the island: a power within herself.
About the Author:
Jaye Viner lives on what used to be the plains of eastern Nebraska with two feline fur bombs and a very tall man. She knows just enough about a wide variety of things to embarrass herself at parties she never attends. She holds an MFA and MA from the University of Nebraska. Her writing has been published in Drabblecast, The Roanoke Review, Everyday Fiction, and the Soul Jar anthology from Forest Avenue Press. She is the author of Jane of Battery Park, the Elaborate Lives series, and The Island of Dreams.

Book Launch Celebration - Jeff Hill - Dark Tendencies and Dirty Secrets
2025-08-29 17:30 - 19:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
From the author of Dead Socials comes a new debut short story collection from Jeff Hill titled Dark Tendencies and Dirty Secrets! Come celebrate with Jeff and get your signed copy at Francie & Finch Bookshop on Friday, August 29th at 5:30!
About the Book:
We all have fears. We all have nightmares. What better way to explore those topics than from the safety of your own home. Dark Tendencies and Dirty Secrets is the debut short story collection from Jeff Hill, author of Dead Socials.: Featuring over 50 stories starring merciless hitmen, vengeful witches, angry ghosts, talking dogs, apocalyptic survivors, international pop-stars, emboldened stalkers, and even a COVID-era Frankenstein’s monster. Compiled for the first time in one collection, this volume includes new editions of the author’s previously published tales as well as several never-before-seen stories. Each story is accompanied by an author’s note, inviting you to peek into the mind of the writer. We all have dark tendencies. We all have dirty secrets.

Disgraced reporter Jed Hollingsworth returns to his hometown of Sarah Falls to document the story of the worst school shooting in the history of the country. Except it’s the people who didn’t survive he’s interviewing, in preference to those who did. For he’s got no qualms asking the dead to tell their stories. And when a friend reaches out from beyond the grave via social media, Jed knows there’s more to the story than he could have ever imagined. What dark secrets could possibly link this small town in the Midwest to a haunted mansion in upstate New York where every inhabitant has taken their own lives? This is a scoop to die for. Dead Socials is a supernatural thriller that explores the world of mass media hysteria. Sometimes the most dangerous weapon is a cell phone. And the only thing more terrifying than ghosts are the people who killed them.

About the Author:
Jeff Hill is a writer who helps others tell their stories. Currently pursuing a PhD in Human Sciences and a graduate certificate in personal leadership at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Jeff holds a BS in education, graduate certificates in the teaching of writing and digital humanities, and a MA in English, all from UNL. He became a college lecturer after teaching high school for a decade and currently serves as a chapter advisor for Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He has over 100 publications for various literary magazines, available in print and online. Jeff is also a faculty member of the Writer’s Hotel writing conference in New York City and a freelance writing tutor and manuscript editor. His debut novel, Dead Socials, and short story collection, Dark Tendencies and Dirty Secrets were released by Poe Boy Publishing in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Find him on Instagram, Twitter/X, and Patreon as jeffhillwriter.

Visiting Author - Josha Sietsma - Think. Define. Choose: How 21 Stories Shaped Life in Nebraska
2025-08-30 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
On Saturday, August 30th please join us at Francie & Finch Bookshop as we welcome back Josha Sietsma to Lincoln! Philosopher, educator, and writer, Josha created a stunning new book Think. Define. Choose. How 21 Stories Shaped Life in Nebraska, now available in a second edition.
And, now there is a model of the Capitol that has been meticulously designed by Josha. This will be a wonderful gift for anyone inspired by our state’s history and architecture.
The model and book will be available at the event, or call the bookshop to pre-order – 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 Launch Celebration - Linda Pawlenty in conversation with Tom Gannon - Clutch: An Education at Work
2025-09-02 18:00 - 19:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Tuesday, September 2nd as we welcome Lincoln author, truck driver, and English teacher Linda Pawlenty, and return guest Tom Gannon! Linda will be signing copies and chatting about her new book Clutch: An Education at Work!
Pre-Order you copy of Clutch HERE!
About the Book:
Driving a concrete mixer throughout graduate school, Linda Pawlenty became accustomed to being the odd one out: as a working-class laborer in academia and as a woman and an academic in the construction industry. But from the moment she became a truck driver, Pawlenty loved the satisfaction of proving herself, the thrill of coaxing large machines into place with precision and care. Similarly, when beginning a PhD program in literature, she maneuvered her way through the strange territory of the university, proud to be the first in her family to attempt the degree. In Clutch, she recounts her time shuttling between worlds, delivering with bracing clarity a rare perspective on gender, class, labor, and whiteness—and how the implications of each shift according to context. From enduring sexual harassment at construction sites and classist comments from professors, to the joys of driving a truck and finding academic fulfillment—Pawlenty takes stock of her disparate experiences to ask hard questions about power and acceptance, providing a beacon for those fighting for presence in places they are not expected—and not always welcome—to be.
About the Author:
Linda Pawlenty is a truck driver and volunteers as an English language teacher for Spanish speakers. She holds a PhD in literary studies from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Praise for Clutch:
“Clutch is a book of such tenderness—and grit and generosity and moving passages. It is also a celebration of construction work, of truck drivers, of teachers and friends, and ultimately of honoring our own hearts even when the worlds we love do not speak to each other. I found myself charmed as I read Linda Pawlenty’s memoir, and I might have gone into truck driving myself if I had found this book when I was younger.” —Daisy Hernández, author of A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir
“This book is a tough haul, as Pawlenty steers between woman truck driver and college English teacher, between the colloquialisms of trucker talk and the conceptualizations of Marxist and feminist theory, between pouring concrete and managing the dangerous abstract curves of graduate school, between the joy of trucking and the shock of sexual harassment. But at the busy intersection of all this, Pawlenty comes through in the clutch.” —Thomas C. Gannon, author of Birding While Indian: A Mixed-Blood Memoir

Lauren Sisler - Shatterproof: How I Overcame the Shame of Losing My Parents to Opioid Addiction (and Found My Sideline Shimmy)** OFFSITE
2025-09-04 18:30 - 21:00 | NE
Lauren Sisler:
Pathway to Resilience and Purpose
Presented by Bryan Health, at Saint Paul United Methodist Church
The author visits Lincoln to talk about her book, Shatterproof: How I Overcame the Shame of Losing My Parents to Opioid Addiction (and Found My Sideline Shimmy)
Lauren Sisler is a two-time Emmy award-winning sportscaster and former college gymnast. Her career in sports broadcasting with ESPN and the SEC Network as a sideline reporter for college football and gymnastics is remarkable. Yet her personal journey is what defines her purpose.
As a freshman at Rutgers University, Lauren lost both of her parents within hours of each other. Her parents had a hidden struggle with prescription drug addiction. Through her pain, she chose to rise. By embracing her story and making peace with it, she found healing and now inspires others to do the same.
Lauren’s story invites you to discover your inner strength. She offers practical insights to build a life that can face challenges while staying true to what matters most.
Lauren will sign copies of her book, Shatterproof, following her presentation.
Purchase Book NOW or At Event
100 copies are available.
Follow the link to REGISTER for the event!

Visiting Author - David Moscovich - Workday [CAPTCHA Poems] - with musical guests Joseph Jaros, Brad Krieger, and Scott Scholz
2025-09-08 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us for an exciting event as author David Moscovich collaborates in a spoken word musical improvisation with musicians Joseph Jaros, Brad Krieger, and Scott Scholz!
About the Author:
David Moscovich (it/its) is the Romanian-American author of four novels: You Are Make Very Important Bathtime, LIFE+70[Redacted], Blink if You Love Me, and Manhattan Other. It is recipient of grants, sponsorships and fellowships from New York University, PEN America, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), Teachers & Writers Collaborative, The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and International House NYC. In 2011, it won the Broad Set Collective Award for Flash Fiction, has been nominated for an &Now Award and a Pushcart Prize. Moscovich runs Louffa Press, a small press publisher of chapbooks and artist books. It triangulates between New York, Nebraska and Portugal. It has sound art releases on Tymbal Tapes and Public Eyesore Records. It is homo sapiens sapiens.
About the Book:
Workday invites us to make outlaw meaning out of what attempts to police us. Moscovich makes poetry out of a group of verbal CAPTCHAS from 2007-2009. Spread across the 9 to 5 of a typical workday we find CAPTCHAS lineated like typical poems, CAPTCHAS as brand names or genus/species names (Geneva bobber, godet dismal) until we see them everywhere — as perhaps we should. This Workday is good trouble and also good fun. —Rae Armantrout
Like OULIPO turning “unpoetic” mathematics into art, David Moscovich has found the beauty and absurdity in what used to be a mundane task— verifying one’s humanity to a website. Moscovich reminds us there is poetry everywhere; these poems turn over the mulch of the unpoetic with a spade to find that beauty. And they’re very strange and often seriously funny, if you think Dr. Ganoidal is funny. And you will. —Matthew Rohrer
The ultimate in restricted writing—David Moscovich’s athletic and poetic feat, a poem every five minutes from 9AM till 5PM with a lunch break. 74 snapshots of the human body and mind under extreme stress, leading to such insights as “skiddy fuckus” and “hunked molars,” as well as puzzlers, such as, “12 breviate 34567890” and “ahanwi siilippan.” Not to be tried by everyone, but available for inspection by the curious. —Yuriy Tarnawsky

Author Event - Dr. Helen Fagan - Lead Like People Matter: What Emotional Intelligence and Neuroscience Reveal About Leadership
2025-09-09 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us as we welcome special guest, author Dr. Helen Fagan to Francie & Finch Bookshop on September 9th! We will be celebrating the release of the newest edition of her book Lead Like People Matter. At the event we will also be welcoming Linked2Literacy, a beloved local non-profit with the mission of inspiring generations by providing inclusive books and literacy education through community partnerships. A portion of your purchase of Dr. Fagan’s new book will be given to the mission of Linked2Literacy.
Follow the link here to pre-order your copy today!
We can’t wait to see you there!
About the Book:
Dr. Helen Fagan invites you on a transformational journey that begins not with strategies or spreadsheets—but with you. Blending memoir, research, decades of experience, and practical wisdom, this timely book challenges leaders to go beyond surface-level actions to develop the emotional intelligence and cultural humility required to lead in an increasingly divided world. From her early life as an Iranian international student navigating culture shock and loss, to her pioneering work in healthcare and education, Dr. Fagan shares deeply personal stories and actionable insights to challenge and inspire leaders.
About the Author:
As a leadership scholar, executive coach, and global strategist, Helen Fagan equips leaders to master the one thing that sets enduring organizations apart: the ability to unlock human potential while advancing meaningful results. As the founder of Helen Fagan & Associates, she has worked across industries and continents, helping high-impact leaders move beyond checklists and competencies into true self-mastery. Her research and leadership development philosophy weave together Emotional Intelligence, Intercultural Mindset, Psychological Capital, and the Neuroscience of Transformation to create lasting change in people, culture, and legacy.

An Evening with Author Jeff Chu in Conversation with Pat Leach at First Presbyterian Church
2025-09-12 19:00 - 20:30 | NE
Join award-winning author Jeff Chu in conversation with Pat Leach, host of Nebraska Public Media’s All About Books, as they explore these powerful themes behind Jeff’s new book Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand.
For more information and to save your seat, visit – https://fpclincoln.org/jeffchu/
ABOUT THE BOOK:
“In his late thirties, Jeff Chu left his job as a magazine writer and enrolled at Princeton Seminary’s “Farminary,” a 21-acre farm where students learn to work the earth while interrogating life’s biggest questions. Now he unfolds what he learned about creating good soil-both literally and figuratively-drawing lessons from the chickens, goats, and zinnias and the rhythms of growth, decay, and regeneration that define life on the land. In a series of reflections, Chu introduces us to the cast of characters, human and not, who became his teachers. From the egrets that visited the pond, to the worms that turned waste into fertile soil, to the Chinese long beans that got passed over in the farm’s CSA, Chu considers our relationship with the food on our plates, the belonging we seek, and the significance of his own roots, discovering what the earth is trying to tell us, if we’ll stop and listen. In gorgeous, transporting prose, Good Soil helps readers connect to the land and to each other at a time when we are drawn most to the phones in our hands. For nature lovers, foodies, and anyone who has daydreamed about a more meaningful life, this book is a tribute to friendship, acceptance, spirituality, and how love can grow from the unlikeliest of places”–AOUT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jeff Chu is an award-winning journalist and editor-at-large at Travel+Leisure. He is the author of Does Jesus Really Love Me? and the co-author, with the late Rachel Held Evans, of the New York Times bestseller Wholehearted Faith. Chu is a former Time staff writer and Fast Company editor whose work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Modern Farmer. In his weekly newsletter, “Notes of a Make-Believe Farmer,” Chu writes about spirituality, gardening, food, travel, and culture. He lives with his husband, Tristan, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
ORDER COPIES HERE!
Bring your copy to the event and meet the author – there will be a book signing after the talk!

Book Launch Event - Alison Pearce Stevens - Detective Dogs: How Working Dogs Sniff Out Invasive Species (Books for a Better Earth)
2025-09-19 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Friends of all ages, join us on Friday, September 19th as we welcome back beloved Science Writer & Award-winning Children’s Author, Alison Pearce Stevens! She will be presenting and signing copies of her new book Detective Dogs!
To pre-order your copy, visit our web store HERE!
About the Book:
A lively introduction to some of North America’s most troublesome invasive species—and to the industrious dogs and handlers working to stop their spread!
Meet Fenton and Frost; Fagen and Dia; Hilo, Diesel, and Seuss. These intrepid environmental detectives are on the frontlines of the fight to stop the spread of invasive species—and all of them are dogs!
Pervasive and often difficult to locate, invasive species, and the economic and environmental harm they cause, have posed a continued challenge to scientists worldwide who dedicate their time to ecosystem conservation. Now, environmental scientists are harnessing the amazing olfactory abilities of working dogs to meet this challenge head-on.
Ecologist Alison Pearce Stevens’ engaging and accessible narrative writing showcases three ongoing conservation projects that use working dogs to tackle serious invaders in the U.S. and Canada. Readers will learn more about the threats posed by these species, and about the way scientists and handlers work with dogs to locate and eliminate them.
The book features extensive full-color photographs of detective dogs in action, taken onsite by the author as she accompanied conservation groups out into the field in Manitoba, Wyoming, and the Hudson Valley. Informative backmatter includes an index and bibliography.
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
About the Author:
Alison Pearce Stevens has an M.S. in zoology and Ph.D. in ecology, evolution, and behavior. She has researched and written hundreds of articles for Science News Explores, Highlights for Children, and ASK magazine, among others. Her book Rhinos in Nebraska (Henry Holt BYR) details the discovery and excavation of one of the world’s premier paleontology sites, and Animal Climate Heroes (Henry Holt BYR) showcases four incredible animals working to protect their ecosystems—and us. Both were Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections. She and her husband have three dogs, one of which would make a great detective dog.
Praise for Detective Dogs:
The writing is concise and informative, making complex biological and ecological concepts easily understandable for young readers. Photographs and real-world examples further enhance the content, offering readers both visual appeal and context. . . . a strong purchase for juvenile nonfiction collections.
—School Library Journal

Visiting Author - River Selby in conversation with Timothy Schaffert - Hotshot: A Life on Fire
2025-10-01 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
You don’t want to miss this visit from author River Selby on October 1st at 5:30. River will be in conversation with Timothy Schaffert presenting Hotshot: A Life on Fire! Learn more about this fascinating memoir about high stakes adventure, personal growth, and humanity below.
PRAISE FOR HOTSHOT:
Amazon Editor’s Pick: Best Biographies & Memoirs of August
A Kirkus Best Book of the Month
A Most Anticipated Book by Autostraddle and featured in the New York Times
NPR’s Books of the Summer
“What a wonderful, compassionate, sharply observed, beautifully researched, open-hearted book. Selby has lived a big, courageous life, and that largesse is evident on every page, in the form of the rigor and curiosity of the narrative voice. Ostensibly about fire-fighting, Hotshot turns out to be a beautiful reflection on justice, the environment, the self, and much more.”–George Saunders, Booker Prize-winning and #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
“Hotshot is a brave, powerful, deeply moving memoir of survival and strength. It is also a timely, urgent history of fire, climate change, and our complex, fraught relationship to land stewardship. River Selby’s story is inspiring in its spiritual and emotional inventory. Selby is a wonderfully gifted writer about nature, about the complexities of trauma, and the hard-won possibilities of healing.”–Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward
“Hotshot is the story of a life forged through crucible. In this wonderous memoir Selby’s life reminds us courage can be grown, the self can be found and anything can change. A writer of shining talent and tenacity.”–Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black and Chain Gang All-Star
To order a copy of Hotshot, please follow the link HERE!
ABOUT THE BOOK:
“A beautiful reflection on justice, the environment, the self, and much more.”–George Saunders
The fierce debut memoir of a female firefighter, Hotshot navigates the personal and environmental dangers of wildland firefighting
From 2000 to 2010, River Selby was a wildland firefighter whose given name was Anastasia. This is a memoir of that time in their life–of Ana, the struggles she encountered, and the constraints of what it means to be female-bodied in a male-dominated industry. An illuminating debut from a fierce new voice, Hotshot is a timely reckoning with both the personal and environmental dangers of wildland firefighting.
By the time they were nineteen, Selby had been homeless, addicted to drugs, and sexually assaulted more than once. In a last-ditch effort to find direction, they applied to be a wildland firefighter. Two years later, they joined an elite class of specially trained wildland firefighters known as hotshots. Over the course of five fire seasons, Selby delves into the world of the people–almost entirely men–who risk their lives to fight and sometimes prevent wildfires. Simultaneously hyper visible and invisible, Selby navigated an odd mix of camaraderie and rampant sexism on the job and, when they challenged it, a violent closing of ranks that excluded them from the work they’d come to love.
Drawing on years of firsthand experience on the frontlines of fire and years of research, Selby examines how the collision of fire suppression policy, colonization, and climate change has led to fire seasons of unprecedented duration and severity. A work of rare intimacy, Hotshot provides new insight into fire, the people who fight it, and the diversity of ecosystems dependent on this elemental force
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
River Selby is a former hotshot and wildland firefighter, a writer, and a nonbinary person. They hold an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University; they are currently pursuing their PhD. They were the recipient of the Emerging Writer’s Prize for Fiction from Boulevard Magazine for their story, “How Certain Fires Burn.” Their writing has appeared in the New Ohio Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Vox, and High Country News. They currently live in Tallahassee, Florida.

Visiting Writers - Teo Shannon, Saddiq Dzukogi, and Alina Nguyen
2025-10-03 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Friday, October 3rd at 5:30 as we welcome talented writers Teo Shannon, Saddiq Dzukogi, and Alina Nguyen! Teo will be in conversation with Saddiq and Alina about his new book of poetry A Chronology of Blood: Poems. Please see below to learn more about our guests. We can’t wait to see you there!
About the Book:
Teo Shannon’s debut collection of poetry casts an unflinching eye on the issues in the author’s life which includes themes of sexual abuse, gun violence, and conversion therapy. The poems in a chronology of blood embrace trauma survivors, the LGBTQ+ community, and lovers of poetry.
A stunning debut collection by a gifted poet, a chronology of blood explores major traumas in the author’s life. Autobiographical in nature, the book is broken into three sections that each deal with a trauma the author has endured, and it explores a range of themes including gun violence, conversion therapy, misuse of drugs, addiction, and domestic violence. But balancing the anger, harm, and pain is hope: above all Shannon is a survivor, learning to incorporate these experiences into a life filled with healing and lived on his own terms.
To learn more or purchase a copy, follow the link: A Chronology of Blood: Poems
About the Writers:
Teo Shannon is a cofounder and a co-EIC of the literary journal Cotton Xenomorph. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He currently lives in Michigan.

Alina Nguyễn was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She is the proud daughter of Vietnamese immigrants. She earned her B.A. in English Literature and Asian American Studies from the California State University, Northridge, and her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the California State University, Long Beach, where she was awarded the Gerald Locklin Writing Prize. Her risograph chapbook, Before There Were More Ghosts, was published by Tomorrow Today. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), where she was co-recipient of the inaugural Louis Crompton Prize. Her research interests include Poetics, Ethnic Literature, Queer Theory, and Printmaking. She is an Instructor of Record and Assistant Director of the Writing Center in the English Department at UNL.

Saddiq Dzukogi holds a degree in mass communication from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (Nigeria), and is pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. A 2017 finalist of the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, he is the author of Inside the Flower Room, selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for the New Generation African Poets Chapbook series. Dzukogi’s poems have appeared in the Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, World Literature Today, New Orleans Review, Oxford Poetry, African American Review, Best American Experimental Writing, and elsewhere.

Visiting Author - Rebecca Lexa - The Everyday Naturalist: How to Identify Animals, Plants, and Fungi Wherever You Go
2025-10-12 15:00 - 16:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Fellow nature lovers, book lovers, and all of those who love to pick up new hobbies, come meet author and naturalist Rebecca Lexa as she talks about “Five Reasons to Be an Everyday Naturalist”, highlighting some great benefits of learning to identify the living beings around you. We will have copies of her book for you to purchase and she will sign when the talk is over. We can’t wait to see you there!
To order a copy of the book, follow the link HERE to Francie & Finch Bookshop’s online store!
About the Book:
Learn to identify animals, plants, and fungi wherever you go with this step-by-step guide for spotting and recording key traits and characteristics.
If you’ve ever consulted a field guide to identify a new bird at your feeder, you know the process isn’t as easy as it sounds. In fact, it seems like you have to know a lot about that mystery bird to even figure out where to start.
The Everyday Naturalist fills in the gaps by explaining what traits to pay attention to when encountering a new species; how and when to use field guides, apps, and other resources; what to do if you get stuck; and more. Rather than focusing on one region or continent, these skills and tools are designed to help you classify nature anywhere you are—whether on familiar territory, traveling, or in a new home.
In chapters about animals, plants, fungi, and organisms like lichens and slime molds, naturalist and guide Rebecca Lexa goes into detail about what sets each of these kingdoms apart from each other—from color, shape, and texture to reproductive characteristics, behavior, and habitat—and includes more than forty full-color photos and drawings to illustrate key points. She also provides detailed case studies to demonstrate how to use all of these traits to identify specimens across multiple kingdoms.
This easy-to-follow guide empowers you to learn more about the species around you, then use what you know to preserve the world you love. And at a time when biodiversity is imperiled worldwide, nature needs more advocates than ever.
About the Author:
Rebecca Lexa is a certified Master Naturalist, writer, nature guide, and educator in the Pacific Northwest. She has a master’s degree in counseling psychology with a certificate in ecopsychology, the psychology of how we connect to the natural world. She specializes in helping everyday people learn skills and tools for identifying the animals, plants, and fungi around them and gaining a deeper relationship with nature. More about Rebecca and her work may be found at www.RebeccaLexa.com.
Rebecca explains that much of her work was developed on unceded Chinook land in southwest Washington. To learn more, please visit ChinookJustice.org.

Visiting Author - Corinna Barrett Lain in conversation with Professor Eric Berger - Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection
2025-10-29 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us to hear about Corinna Barrett Lain’s new book Secrets of the Killing State:The Untold Story of Lethal Injection. She will be in conversation with UNL Professor of Law Eric Berger. You don’t want to miss the conversation, we’ll see you there!
Pre-order your copy HERE.
Books will also be available at the event, with a book signing to follow the talk.

About the Book:
Lethal injection is nothing like what people think. This is its untold story.
In the popular imagination, lethal injection is a slight pinch and a swift nodding off to forever-sleep. It is performed by well-qualified medical professionals. It is regulated and carefully conducted. And it usually provides a “humane” death. In reality, however, not one of those things is true.
Secrets of the Killing State pulls back the curtain on this clandestine punishment practice, presenting a view of lethal injection that states have worked hard to hide. Botched executions are a part of this story, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. For all the suffering that we see, there is also suffering that we don’t see. Indeed, the story told here is even bigger than the executions themselves, for behind the scenes is where it unfolds. Fake science, torturous drugs, inept executioners, prison problems, and decades of state secrecy have created an execution method hard-wired to go wrong in countless ways.
The story of lethal injection is a story of gross incompetence, law breaking, torturous deaths, and a stunning indifference to the way in which human beings die at the hands of the state. These are the secrets of the killing state–all that we know from litigation files, scientific studies, investigative journalism, autopsy reports, interviews, and scholarship across a number of fields. Death penalty expert Corinna Barrett Lain uses this groundbreaking journey into the dark reality of lethal injection to shine a light on the American death penalty more broadly and show that the state at its most powerful moment is also the state at its worst.
We are now over 45 years into the lethal injection era, and most Americans still have no idea what states are doing in their name. It’s time they found out.
About the Author:
Corinna Barrett Lain is the S. D. Roberts & Sandra Moore Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law and the author of Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection (NYU Press, 2025). She is one of the nation’s leading authorities on the death penalty and one of the leading voices on criminal justice in Virginia more broadly. Lain is a former prosecutor, former sergeant in the Army, an elected member of the American Law Institute, and a recipient of the University of Richmond’s Distinguished Educator Award.
About the Guest:
Professor Eric Berger teaches at the University of Nebraska College of Law. He has worked on lethal injection cases as both a litigator and a scholar.

Visiting Publication - Meet the Flatwater Free Press!
2025-11-02 14:00 - 16:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us at Francie & Finch Bookshop as we welcome our friends from the Flatwater Free Press (FFP)! Lincoln reporter Emily Wolf and Managing Editor Ryan Hoffman will be here to let us know what they’ve been working on, listen to guests share what stories they think FFP should work on next, and to hand out their 2025 Commemorative Edition newspaper! We can’t wait to see you there!
A portion of the bookstore sales for the day will support the FFP newsroom.
To learn more about Flatwater Free Press visit https://flatwaterfreepress.org/.

Visiting Author - John Stevens Berry - Second Comings, Final Tour
2025-11-10 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us as we welcome Berry Law founder and Pulitzer nominated poet, John Stevens Berry back to Francie & Finch Bookshop. He will be presenting his newest book of poetry Second Comings, Final Tour.
About the Author:
Berry is a decorated Vietnam Veteran, Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, and a Baker Street Irregular. His poetry reflects on service, justice, and the human condition — a powerful commentary on a life of meaning and impact.
To learn more about John, visit:
https://nebraskaauthors.org/authors/john-stevens-berry

Visiting Author - Ilana Masad - Beings: A Novel
2025-11-12 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
From the celebrated author of All My Mother’s Lovers, a new novel based on true events asks whether extraterrestrial life might be what ties us to one another, to history, and to reality itself. Please join us in welcoming author Ilana Masad on Wednesday, November 12th at 5:30 as she presents her new novel Beings!
To order a copy, follow the link HERE!
About the Book:
“The alien abduction meets lesbian yearning novel that will restore your faith in the universe. Ilana Masad excavates the juiciness of historical archives and the otherworldly mysteries of the everyday in her most brilliant work yet.” –Ruth Madievsky, author of All-Night Pharmacy
Named a “Most Anticipated Book” by the LA Times, Washington Post, Autostraddle, Town and Country, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Lit Hub, and The Millions
In 1961, an interracial couple drove through the dark mountains of New Hampshire when a mysterious light began to follow them. Years later, through hypnosis, they recalled an unbelievable brush with extraterrestrial life. Unintentionally, a genre was born: the alien abduction narrative.
In Ilana Masad’s Beings, the couple’s experience serves as one part of a trio of intertwined threads: Known only by their roles as husband and wife, Masad explores the pair’s trauma and its aftermath and questions what it means to accept the impossible. In the second thread, letters penned by a budding science-fiction writer, Phyllis, to her beloved, Rosa, expose the raw ache of queer yearning, loneliness, and alienation in the repressive 1960s-as well as the joy of finding community. In the present day, a reclusive and chronically ill Archivist attempts to understand a strange forgotten childhood encounter while descending into obsession over both Phyllis’s letters and the testimony of the first alien abductees.
Over the course of a decade, Phyllis wrestles with her desires and ambitions as a lesbian writer, while the abducted couple grapple with how to maintain control of their narrative. All the while, the archive shatters and reforms, redefining fact and fiction via the stories left behind by the abductees, Phyllis, and the Archivist themself. Masad makes human what is alien and makes tangible what is hidden – sometimes by chance and sometimes intentionally – in the archive.
About the Author:
Ilana Masad is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism whose work has been widely published. Masad is the author of the novel All My Mother’s Lovers and is co-editing the forthcoming anthology Here For All the Reasons: #BachelorNation’s Franchise Fascination.
Praise for the Book:
“Three gripping narratives entwine as supernatural encounters and personal revelations transform lives in the 1960s and the present… Miraculously, Masad makes this dense braid of stories easy to follow, elegantly blending serpentine sentences, endearing and intimately observed characters, natural dialogue, and playful, generous asides to keep the reader in enthralled suspense. A dazzlingly original testament to companionship, curiosity, and faith in ourselves in times of fear and loneliness.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“An incandescent exploration of memory, narrative, and sexual identity, Beings is certain to delight readers of literary fiction with sf elements.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Masad (All My Mother’s Lovers) spins an affecting tale of aliens, alienation, and archives… The interconnected narratives reveal the power of stories and archival material to reach across time and help an isolated person find themselves. Readers will be swept away.” —Publishers Weekly

Visiting Author - Max Perry Mueller in conversation with Gabriel Bruguier - Wakara's America
2025-11-13 17:30 - 18:30 | NE
Join us as we welcome Max Perry Mueller in conversation with Gabriel Bruguier (Yankton Sioux Tribe) about Mueller’s new book Wakara’s America: The Life and Legacy of a Native Founder of the American West.
Pre-order your copy of the book HERE
About the Book:
The forgotten life and complex legacies of Wakara, the mighty, once-notorious Native leader whose battles and conquests shaped the American West.The Native American leader Wakara (ca. 1815–1855) was among the most influential and feared men in the nineteenth-century American West, famed as a fierce warrior, a merciless trader of Indian slaves, and history’s greatest horse thief.
In Wakara’s America, historian Max Perry Mueller illuminates Wakara’s complex and sometimes paradoxical story, revealing a man who both helped build the settler American West and defended Native sovereignty. Wakara was baptized a Mormon and allied with Mormon settlers against other Indians to seize large parts of modern-day Utah. Yet a pan-tribal uprising against the Mormons that now bears Wakara’s name stalled and even temporarily reversed colonial expansion. Through diplomacy and through violence, Wakara oversaw the establishment of settlements, built new trade routes, and helped create the boundaries that still define the region.
Drawing together deep archival research with Native oral histories, archaeology, geology, and ecology, Wakara’s America offers an innovative new vision of the history of the American West with Native people at its center. It serves as a powerful testament to Wakara’s legacy, which endures in his story, in his tribal descendants, and in their stewardship of their ancestral lands today.

Max Perry Mueller is an associate professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and is the author of the award-winning Race and the Making of the Mormon People. His writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the New Republic, and Slate. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Gabriel Bruguier is an Assistant Professor and Teaching and Learning Librarian at the University of Nebraska Libraries. He is an enrolled member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe and grew up in Vermillion and Sisseton, South Dakota. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, a B.A. in philosophy from University of Minnesota Morris, and a Licentiate in International Relations from the Universidad de las Americas-Puebla. He is the City of Lincoln Commissioner on the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs.
Praise for the Book:
“Gripping… an eye-opening and layered new vision of the American West.” – Publishers Weekly
“With attentive care, Max Perry Mueller has pieced together the chaotic and previously under-studied history of the famous Ute leader, Wakara, whose power both terrified and galvanized Native and non-Native peoples across the West. This book offers a sobering reassessment of the history of the Great Basin and locates the disruptive and violent influences of colonialism at its center.”–Ned Blackhawk, National Book Award–winning author of The Rediscovery of America
“A poignant and fascinating history, Wakara’s America tells how the great leader Wakara led his Ute people through good times and bad and helped to create the American West.”–Kathleen DuVal, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Native Nations
“Wakara was a power to reckon with in western North America. In this eye-opening and engaging work, Max Perry Mueller demonstrates the adaptability and resourcefulness of a Native leader and his people while highlighting the incredibly harsh choices they faced.”–Andrés Reséndez, author of The Other Slavery
“The place that is Wakara’s America feels vaguely familiar—Utah and its environs—but it turns out to be a different country altogether. Fighting off generations of erasures, Max Perry Mueller blends personal reportage and tautly narrated history to reveal the complex life and legacy of the wide-ranging Ute leader who shaped unfreedom, trade, and settlement across a huge expanse of the American West. Rich in detail and subtle in analysis, Wakara’s America is a classic page-turner that grabs a reader and won’t let go.”–Philip J. Deloria, Harvard University

Visiting Author - John T. Price - Goethe’s Oak: A Holocaust Story
2025-11-22 16:30 - 17:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us as author John T. Price visits Francie & Finch Bookshop and reads from his newest work of non-fiction, Goethe’s Oak: A Holocaust Story.
“A tree that thinks — most of us would imagine this impossible. Yet in Goethe’s Oak, John Price has created a compassionate, compelling, and utterly believable narrator. Its story is a meditation on nature, loss, rebirth, and time. Most of all, it’s a treatise on how to be human.”—Hope Edelman, The AfterGrief
Order your copy of the book HERE!
About the Book:
Writing from the perspective of the legendary Goethe’s Oak, John T. Price reimagines and honors the life of an extraordinary tree. Drawing on centuries of human remembrances, from the tree’s namesake, writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to prisoners at Buchenwald in the 1940s, Price intertwines their stories with recent scientific research into the underground communication networks of trees. Goethe’s Oak offers readers a poignant yet inspiring picture of nature’s ability to comfort. (icecubepress.com)
About the Author:
John T. Price is the award-winning author of four books of creative nonfiction, most recently All is Leaf: Essays and Transformations (2022), and Goethe’s Oak: A Holocaust Story (2025). He is also editor of The Tallgrass Prairie Reader (2014)—the first nature writing anthology entirely dedicated to the tallgrass environment. A recipient of a prose fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, his work has been featured in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies. He teaches at The University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he directs the English Department’s Creative Nonfiction Writing Program.

Plaid Friday and Shop Small Saturday at Francie & Finch Bookshop
2025-11-28 - 2025-11-29 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
It’s that time of year again for our annual celebration!
Come visit us on Plaid Friday, November 28th, or Shop Small Saturday, November 29th to join in the fun!
Loads of new inventory
Original Art
Homemade treats and hot cider
Free ARC with purchase
and as always, free gift wrapping!
Visiting Authors on Shop Small Saturday!
10am – 12pm – John Shaw – Cameron the Capitol Cat
11am – 1pm – Bruce Arant – Ethan Eats Hot Lunch/Ethan Goes to Reess/Simpson’s Sheep Just Want to Sleep/Simpson’s Sheep Won’t Go to Sleep
12pm – 2pm – Barbara Mayes Boustead – Wilder Weather
2pm – 3pm – Kolleen Meyer-Krikac – Enneagram Series for Kids

Plus, **Every time you shop, between now and 12/15, you’ll be entered into our annual $100 Shopping Spree drawing (in-store AND online).
Your support throughout the year means so much to us, so please think of us this holiday season and join in on the fun!

Visiting Author - Susan Bruzas - Turning on the Light: My Mysterious Illness and the Year that Transformed Me
2025-12-04 17:30 - 18:30 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Thursday, December 4th as we welcome memoirist Susan Bruzas to Francie & Finch Bookshop. She will be reading from her new book Turning on the Light: My Mysterious Illness and the Year that Transformed Me.
This powerful new memoir shines a light on the silent struggle of a life-threatening, unexplained illness—and the resilience it takes to reclaim your life when the odds are against you.” – Kirk House Publishers
You can order your copy through Francie & Finch HERE!
About the Book:
The story of a woman whose “mysterious” illness takes over a year of her life. I felt like I had been completely absent. It was like coming out of anesthesia. It was as if I was emerging from a big blank. A void. I was waking up. And what I woke up to was hearing someone say, “She’s sleeping.” I knew they were talking about me. Was I sleeping? No. I knew I wasn’t sleeping. Looking back on this now, I can see that I was at a turning point. I had to decide whether I would continue on the trajectory I’d been on, one that was headed straight for death or into a life in which I might not be fully conscious, in which I wouldn’t be “me” anymore. Or would I decide to come back into the joyous, often underappreciated life I’d been living? Which was it going to be?
About the Author:
Ssusan Bruzas is living in Lincoln,Nebraska. She spends her time traveling, meditating, visiting her grandchildren,and returning often to the Pacific Northwest—where her life-altering journey began.

Live Music at Francie & Finch! - Prairie Psycho
2025-12-05 18:00 - 20:00 | Francie & Finch Bookshop, 130 S. 13th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68508, United States
Join us on Friday, December 5th as we have some fun with Prairie Psycho, a Lincoln based garage-rock/power pop band!
Do some holiday shopping, enjoy live music, and enjoy some cozy treats!! We can’t wait to see you there!
