A monthly in-house reading series with new guests each month, beginning with social time at 5:30 pm followed by the reading/music from 6:00 – 7:30 pm. Guests will include writers of all genres and (frequently) musicians.

Thursday, June 27, 2024 features JV Brummels and Chad Christensen.

JV Brummels’ fifth collection, City at War, was published by The Backwaters Press in late 2009. His work has been recognized with a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Elkhorn Prize and the Mildred Bennett Award for contributions to the state’s literature from the Nebraska Center for the Book. His Book of Grass was awarded the 2008 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. Raised first on a farm and later on a ranch, he was educated at the University of Nebraska and later Syracuse University. In 1984 he began a horseback cattle outfit to raise natural, grass-fed beef, which he still operates. A longtime professor at Wayne State College, he’s also written and published short fiction and a novel. For the last 20 years he’s served as publisher of Logan House, co-founded with Jim Reese, which specializes in contemporary American poetry. In 2006 he was named director of the newly created WSC Press.

Chad Christensen is a professor of English at Wayne State College. He also serves as the Managing Editor of the WSC Press and director of the Plains Writers Series. He teaches creative writing (poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction), editing, publishing, and literature. He’s also the advisor for the student literary magazine Judas Goat and the WSC Poetry and Fiction Slams. He’s been teaching full time at Wayne State College since 2012 and received the Balsley Whitmore Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015 and 2020.