The Linden Review, in partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha English Department and Creative Nonfiction Program, the Moonrise Gallery, and Glacier Creek Preserve, announces the first Bouteloua LitArt Fest, a celebration of local authors and artists.

The event will be held at Glacier Creek Preserve in Bennington from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 11, 2022. The event is free to attend and open to the public, and complimentary food and drink will be provided.

Taylor Brorby will be the keynote speaker for the event. Brorby is the author of Boys and Oil: Growing up Gay in a Fractured Land (a New York Times “Editors’ Choice” for 2022). A recipient of fellowships from the National Book Critics Circle and the MacDowell Colony, his work has appeared in The Huffington Post, Orion Magazine, Southern Humanities Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and numerous anthologies. The author regularly speaks around the country on issues related to extractive economies, queerness, disability, and climate change.

The event will kick off at 2:00 p.m. with a panel of local authors: John T. Price, Kristine Langley Mahler, Jim Reese, and Kelly Madigan.

John T. Price is the author of four books of creative nonfiction, including All is Leaf: Essays and Transformations and Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships, and is editor of The Tallgrass Prairie Reader. He is a Regents/Foundation Distinguished Professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he directs the English Department’s Creative Nonfiction Writing Program.

Kristine Langley Mahler is a memoirist experimenting with the truth on the suburban prairie outside Omaha, Nebraska. Her debut essay collection, Curing Season: Artifacts (In Place), is forthcoming from WVU Press on October 1, 2022. She is the recipient of a 2021 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Nebraska Arts Council, and is currently the director and publisher of Split/Lip Press.

Jim Reese is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Great Plains Writers’ Tour at Mount Marty University in Yankton, South Dakota. Reese’s poetry and prose have been widely published, and he has presented at venues throughout the country, including the Library of Congress and San Quentin Prison. His first book of nonfiction, Bone Chalk, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press in 2019.

Kelly Madigan is an award-winning poet and essayist, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in creative writing, and the Distinguished Artist Award in Literature from the Nebraska Arts Council. Her collection of poetry, The Edge of Known Things, was published by SFASU press.

The event will also feature prairie walks and an exhibition of art from local artists, curated and sponsored by Moonrise Gallery. Visitors can take in the rolling hills and the countryside scenery at the 525-acre preserve, part of University of Nebraska at Omaha's extended campus. The location features several trails, some of which wind through the 140-acre Allwine Prairie Tract, a restored tallgrass prairie created in 1970.

Food for the event will be provided by the 402 BBQ food truck beginning at 5:30 p.m.