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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Francie & Finch Bookshop
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260630T173000
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DTSTAMP:20260625T142605
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SUMMARY:Book of Poetry Launch - Nicole Lachat in conversation with Ber Anena - The Red We Silk
DESCRIPTION:Join us in welcoming poet Nicole Lachat as she presents her new book of poetry The Red We Silk. Nicole will be joined in a special conversation with fellow writer\, Ber Anena. This event will be held on Tuesday\, June 30th and is open to the public!\nTo order your copy of The Red We Silk\, follow the link HERE! \nAbout the Book:\nThe Red We Silk collects inherited migrations and the weight of familial journeys into a lyric investigation of displacement and longing. Memory abides in the body and the body in memory\, propelling the speaker through geographical and spiritual landscapes\, desires\, and griefs toward the transformative work of discovery. Tender\, attentive\, and multivocal\, these are poems of belonging beyond borders. \nAbout the Author:\nNicole Lachat was born in Edmonton\, Canada\, to a Peruvian mother and a Swiss father. She holds PhD in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU. Her debut collection\, The Red We Silk\, was the recipient of the 2024 Michael Waters Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal\, Ruminate Magazine\, One by Jacar Press\, Birdfeast Magazine\, The Puerto Rico Review\, and Poets.org\, among others. She was awarded the 2022 Wilbur Gaffney Poetry Prize through the Academy of American Poets and received a 2024 Individual Arts Fellowship through the Nebraska Arts Council. She is a mentor for Adroit Journal’s 2026 Summer Mentorship Program. Nicole currently resides in Canada. \n\n\n\n\nAbout Speaker:\nBer Anena is a writer from Gulu\, Uganda. She attended the MFA Writing program at Columbia University and is finalizing a PhD in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she has received the Vreeland Prize for Fiction and the Susan Atefat Peckham Prize for Poetry. Anena’s debut poetry collection\, A Nation in Labour\, won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2018. Her works appear in or are forthcoming from Transition Magazine\, Wasafiri\, Prairie Schooner\, The Atlantic\, adda\, Off  Assignment and Black Warrior Review. Her prose has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and nominated forthe Pushcart. Anena’s memoir\, THE LIES WE TELL FOR AMERICA is out on November 10\, 2026 from Flatiron Books by Macmillan. \nPraise for collection:\n“The Red We Silk is an impressive debut that captures with elegance and ease the truly twenty-first century phenomenon of multiple migrations and cultural intersections as they manifest in the body of a gifted poet. Nicole Lachat frames these considerations within the Peruvian myth of Chasqui\, who becomes for her a migrant voicing the poetic implications of uprooting and replanting in different spaces. Lachat’s brilliantly generous poems of deep sentiment and spiritual interrogation explore themes of family\, memory\, place\, and desire with resonant beauty.”–Kwame Dawes \n“Reader\, this is no ordinary debut. Nicole Lachat knows that all borders are lies. Citizen and immigrant. Land and body. Parent and child. The quick and the dead. Whatever lines you believe in\, whatever lines you draw\, prepare to have them dissolved. ‘Because you come / ready for war–swearing lightning\, swearing / thunder–I come light-footed. I become / leaf.’ Lachat is here to say that no onehas the right to divide us\, not even us\, that our survival depends on this: knowing we are each other\, knowing we can still become our softest selves. The Red We Silk will change you.”–Rebecca Gayle Howell \n“In this timely debut\, Nicole Lachat’s lyric verve shapes the very ground of ordinary living into a personal history that threads memory with an urgent desire for bonds that survive and transform the temporal\, emotional\, and otherwise disfiguring work of distance. Arresting and smashing.”–Canisia Lubrin
URL:https://francieandfinch.com/event/book-of-poetry-launch-nicole-lachat-in-conversation-with-ber-anena-the-red-we-silk/
LOCATION:Francie & Finch Bookshop\, 130 S. 13th Street\, Lincoln\, NE\, 68508\, United States
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260718T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260718T173000
DTSTAMP:20260625T142605
CREATED:20260602T174103Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260623T182552Z
UID:10566-1784392200-1784395800@francieandfinch.com
SUMMARY:Book Launch - Alena Bruzas in conversation with Allison Bitz - The Broken Edge of the World
DESCRIPTION:Francie & Finch Bookshop is pleased to host the celebratation of the launch of Alena Bruzas 3rd novel\, The Broken Edge of the World! Come hear her in conversation with cherished local author Allison Bitz! We can’t wait to see you there!\nPre-order your copy of The Broken Edge of the World\, here!\nAbout the Book:\nTheir love is destined\, but can it survive her compulsion for beauty? Haunting and steamy\, this spellbinding fantasy romance will enthrall you with its alluring concoction of traditional Grimm’s and modern thrills. \n“With deft\, atmospheric prose and lush\, otherworldly lore\, Bruzas captures the essence of self-identity\, belonging and the kind of love that both consumes and inspires. A dazzling modern fairytale.”\n—Kika Hatzopoulou\, bestselling author of Threads That Bind \nSylvie has taken a summer job at a remote and alluring prairie preserve in the middle of the Great Plains. It’s a much-needed escape—from her sadness\, from her cruelly distant father\, and maybe even from herself: She longs to be free of the intrusive\, obsessive thoughts that are her constant burden. \nSoon\, she finds herself drawn to a stunning shepherd boy and can’t stop herself from going to him at night\, even though she’s been warned to keep away. During the day\, though\, she begins to develop a friendship with another boy\, a strange-looking and strangely gentle coworker named Jack . . . and gradually to uncover the mysteries of this place that feels more like home than anyplace has before it. \nBut those mysteries include a powerful curse\, and when she uncovers the truth of it\, she becomes recklessly determined to break it—to free the one trapped in its spell. She fails to consider the possibility that her actions could break much more than just the curse\, and that some burdens demand to be borne. \nAbout the Author:\nAlena Bruzas grew up in Seattle and currently lives in Lincoln\, Nebraska\, with her family. She is the author of the acclaimed novels To the Bone and Ever Since\, and she hopes her writing will find the people who need it most. When she’s not writing\, Alena works at a bookstore and serves on the board for Ten Thousand Villages\, Lincoln. She also occasionally cooks dinner\, worries about commas\, and wanders the prairie. \nPraise for The Broken Edge of the World:\n“This psychologically incisive supernatural novel by Bruzas blends the eerie cadence of dark fairy tales with modern suspense to probe themes of obsession. Sylvie’s unflinchingly self-critical yet deeply empathetic first-person narration captures both the claustrophobic logic of her OCD and the aching vulnerability of a girl desperate to be seen and loved. It all adds up to a sensitive\, fully fleshed-out portrayal of one teen navigating grief alongside mental health challenges.”—Publishers Weekly \n“Recommended\, particularly for readers who enjoy retellings inspired by fairy tales.”—School Library Journal
URL:https://francieandfinch.com/event/book-launch-alena-bruzas-the-broken-edge-of-the-world/
LOCATION:Francie & Finch Bookshop\, 130 S. 13th Street\, Lincoln\, NE\, 68508\, United States
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260807T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260807T173000
DTSTAMP:20260625T142605
CREATED:20260428T174948Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260623T181117Z
UID:10530-1786120200-1786123800@francieandfinch.com
SUMMARY:Visiting Author - Colleen Morton Busch in conversation with Judy Lorenzen - Smolder
DESCRIPTION:Join us as we welcome Ex Ophidia’s 2025 winner for the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize\, Colleen Morton Busch\, as she presents her book of poetry Smolder. Colleen will be joined in conversation by writer Judy Lorenzen. We will see you there! \nAbout the Book:\nSmolder takes its title from a diagnosis my husband received 20 years ago\, of smoldering multiple myeloma—a treatable but incurable blood cancer we’d never heard of before. At that time\, the prescribed treatment was: Don’t do anything. Just watch and wait for myeloma to cause problems. Sometimes the title comes before the work. This lush word—smolder—plucked from the natural world and set down amid arid clinical terms and bewildering medical advice captivated me. I immediately wanted to write a collection of poems entitled Smolder. I did write some of the poems. But then I spent the next two decades working in prose. Eventually\, I found my way back to poetry and its ability to relate a story and accrue meaning the way only a poem can. I had my title\, Smolder\, but now I had the embodied experience of twenty years to spark and sustain the poems. Smolder explores the many kinds of fire blazing inside a life. Fires of rage\, grief\, lust\, loss\, uncertainty and acceptance. They’re love poems\, elegies\, prayers\, howls\, meditations. Together\, the poems reveal what it’s like to live with the open flame of a tender heart \nAbout the Author:\nColleen Morton Busch is the 2025 winner of the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize\, an annual poetry book contest by Ex Ophidia Press. Busch’s winning collection Smolder is a collection of poems about that many kinds of fire blazing inside life. Busch is the author of “Fire Monks: Zen Minds Meets Wildfire” (Penguin Press\, 2011) that was named best book of the year by Publisher’s Weekly. Her prose and poems have been published widely\, from Willow Springs\, Poet Lore\, and Belleview Literary Review\, to Orion\, The Washington Post\, Tricycle\, and the Ekphrastic Review. Smolder is her first poetry collection \nFor more about her work\, visit www.colleenmortonbusch.com \nAbout Guest:\nJudy Lorenzen\, a former children’s librarian and English teacher\, is a poet\, writer and teaching artist\, who lives on a farm in Central City\, where she enjoys the vast beauty of the Great Plains every day of her life. Her works appear in journals\, anthologies\, newspapers\, magazines\, and on calendars and websites. Her first book\, Turning Back to Her Love Pages\, was published in May 2025\, Kelsay Books. She is working with a publisher presently on her second book\, Seasons of Reverence\, a poetic memoir of her life on the Great Plains\, which should be out later in 2026.
URL:https://francieandfinch.com/event/visiting-author-colleen-morton-busch-in-conversation-with-judy-lorenzen-smolder/
LOCATION:Francie & Finch Bookshop\, 130 S. 13th Street\, Lincoln\, NE\, 68508\, United States
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