Michael James

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, October 19 features memoirist Michael James and poet Brad Anderson. Trained as a visual artist, Michael James has had an unconventional career in both the private sector and academia. His textile art is included in numerous public and private collections, including those of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and many more. He joined the faculty of the Department of Textiles at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2000, concluding that tenure twenty years later as Professor Emeritus and Chair Emeritus. He is the recipient of two Visual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an NEA-sponsored USA–France Exchange Fellowship. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he continues studio and writing practices, and helps to sustain connections among a close-knit group of husband caregivers of dementia sufferers. Brad Anderson lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, and married his high school sweetheart, LuAnne Rose (Shaw) Anderson, when they were both 19. LuAnne died from Alzheimer’s on January 20, 2017, at the age of 61. Brad started writing poetry during LuAnne’s illness. He had never written poetry but found it was cathartic and helped him survive a difficult time. He continues to write poetry today. As Irish poet David Whyte said, “It is a language against which we have no defenses.”