Kearney Public Library invites you to two events with Nebraska State Poet, Twyla Hansen on Thursday, March 22 at the library, located at 2020 1st Avenue. She will conduct a writing workshop at noon and present a poetry reading at 7:00 p.m.
Playing Around With Words: Poems, Stories, and the Creative Process with Twyla Hansen. This workshop will begin at noon and is limited to 30 people. Pre-register by calling 308-233-3282 or e-mail: cwalsh@kearneygov.org. This writing workshop focuses on the creative process for both poetry and short prose. Twyla will use readings of her own and others’ writing, along with guided writing exercises, to create an interactive and supportive workshop. Through these exercises, participants will retrieve their own and others’ experiences to generate new possibilities for unique stories that might also be shaped into a poem or essay. For beginning and seasoned writers, middle school through adult.
Poetry from the Plains - readings by Twyla Hansen at 7:00 p.m.
Hansen will read selections from her poetry and discuss how the landscape of the Great Plains has inspired, influenced and shaped her writing. Her poetry follows in the footsteps of earlier Plains writers, using a sense of place to make connections between the natural and human worlds, the land and all its inhabitants–the ordinary, extraordinary food for poetry and stories about the human experience on the Plains and beyond. This presentation encourages audience questions on subjects of interest to creative writers.
Twyla Hansen was born and raised in northeast Nebraska. She was raised on the farm her grandparents had purchased as immigrants from Denmark in the late 1880s. Hansen earned her BS in horticulture and MA in agroecology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, including How to Live in the Heartland (1992), Sanctuary Near Salt Creek (2001), and Potato Soup (2003), which won the Nebraska Book Award for poetry. Hansen collaborated with rancher and writer Linda Hasselstrom on the collection Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet (2011); the book won the Nebraska Book Award in poetry and was a finalist for the Willa Literary Award and the High Plains Book Award.
She is a creative writing presenter through the Speakers Bureau of the Nebraska Humanities Council. In 2013, Hansen was appointed Nebraska State Poet. She lives and works in Lincoln, Nebraska.
This program is free and open to the public. Humanities Nebraska (HN) provides major funding for this program. HN receives support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Nebraska State Legislature, the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and private donations.