| Award-winning writer to visit Omaha Public Library |
| December 10, 2012 |
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Kwame Dawes, Guggenheim Fellow and winner of the Poets & Writers, Inc. 2012 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, will visit Charles B. Washington Branch, 2868 Ames Ave., on Saturday, Dec. 15, at 4 p.m. Dawes will perform a poetry reading and take questions from the audience. The event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served. Omaha is just one of more than a dozen stops on a driving tour to promote Prairie Schooner, an international literary journal based out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dawes will travel to public libraries across Nebraska, accompanied by poet and managing editor, Marianne Kunkel. This tour fulfills one of the goals that Dawes set for himself during the first few months of his tenure as editor-in-chief of Prairie Schooner. “Prairie Schooner is one of Nebraska’s greatest and most enduring gifts to the world, and it has been giving America so much for eighty-six years. I want to find as many ways to remind the people of the state about what a treasure we have and to see if we can generate even more ownership and pride in the publication.” Dawes sees this tour as a way to remind its core base about the journal’s roots in Nebraska and its continued interest in regional writers as well as its reliance on the support and interest of Nebraskans. “We do not want to be an impersonal journal, but one that is aware that real people read and support the journal, and many of those real people live here in Nebraska. The great perk for all of this, however, is that I get a chance to see the state more and to find out how Prairie Schooner can support the literary arts in Nebraska in town after town.” Rod Wagner, Nebraska Library Commission Communications Director, says, “This is a great opportunity for people across Nebraska to hear an internationally-known Nebraska poet read from his work and to learn more about Nebraska’s own Prairie Schooner.” Visit omahalibrary.org for information on additional events at Omaha Public Library’s 12 metro locations. |
