Wayne State College's Language and Literature Department, the School of Arts and Humanities and the WSC Press are pleased to host the next installment of the Plains Writers Series, featuring Jessica Hendry Nelson, on Thursday, Dec. 7, at Wayne State.
The reading, free and open to the public, will begin at 2 p.m. in the second-floor lounge of the Humanities Building. This event will be live-streamed on the Plains Writers Series Facebook page.
The Fiction Slam will follow the Plains Writers Series reading. The slam will be held at 7 p.m. at the Max Bar and Grill in downtown Wayne. Registration begins at 6:30 p.m. for slam participants who need to bring two original stories and the $5 registration fee. The slam is also free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.wscpress.com.
About Jessica Hendry Nelson
Jessica Hendry Nelson, who resides in Richmond, Virginia, is the author of the memoir “If Only You People Could Follow Directions (2014),” which was selected as a best debut book by the Indies Introduce New Voices program, the Indies Next List by the American Booksellers' Association, named a Best Book of the Year by “Kirkus Review,” received starred reviews in Kirkus and “Publisher's Weekly,” and reviewed nationally in print and on National Public Radio — including twice in “O (The Oprah Magazine).” It was also a finalist for the Vermont Book Award.
She is also co-author of the textbook and anthology “Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writers' Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2021),” along with the writer Sean Prentiss. Her work has appeared in “The Threepenny Review,” “Prairie Schooner,” “North American Review,” “Tin House,” “The Los Angeles Review of Books,” “The Rumpus,” “The Carolina Quarterly,” “Columbia Journal,” “Painted Bride Quarterly,” “Crab Orchard Review,” “PANK” “Drunken Boat” and elsewhere.
She is an assistant professor in the Master of Fine Arts program and English Department at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a faculty member in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.
About the Plains Writers Series
The Plains Writers Series is held several times a year at Wayne State and has been an integral part of the college’s history since 1977. This reading series generally features Great Plains authors and artists in a one or two-day event that is free and open to the public. The Plains Writers Series brings attention to the prose and poetry of Great Plains writers through reading and interacting with area audiences.
The Plains Writers Series provides a forum for Nebraska’s contemporary writers and poets to share their work with Nebraska readers. The content of the project is literature, especially that of rural Nebraska. Literature will be the entire focus of the series throughout the day in the form of readings, questions and answer sessions, one-on-one conversations between the audience members, and the authors presenting their work. Following the readings, a poetry or fiction slam is held in downtown Wayne.
For more information about the Plains Writers Series, contact Chad Christensen, managing editor of the WSC Press and director of the Plains Writers Series, at wscpress@wsc.edu or 402-375-7118, or visit www.wscpress.com.
