Date: Friday, May 13^th

Time: 7-9:30pm

Location: 2016 S 185^th St. Omaha, NE 68130

Food: Wine/Beer and Appetizers/Desserts will be served

Entertainment: We’re very excited to announce that William Trowbridge, author of Ship of Fool, The Complete Book of Kong, Flickers, O Paradise, and Enter Dark Stranger has agreed to delight us with a brief reading.

The Nebraska Writers Collective is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicating to the promotion of literacy and the literary arts. The board of directors would like to invite you to our spring fundraiser, the proceeds of which will help us continue and expand our work through such programs as Poets on Loan. Through Poets on Loan, we send teams of poets into the schools to work directly with students to promote literacy, creativity, and self-expression.  On May 13^th, we’ll be celebrating a successful year of Poets on Loan and its spring expansion into 3 additional area schools! We hope you’ll join us for a great evening!

If you’d like to attend (or simply donate), please click the donate button below.

The suggested minimum donation to attend the event is $30 per couple.

(This is an electronic copy of a letter to teachers about the 2011 NWC Youth Slam)

This year, in conjunction with the Great Plains Poetry Pile-Up (www.poetrymenu.com/gppp.html), which brings thirty of the most talented slam poets in the country to Nebraska for a weekend, the NWC will be sponsoring a youth poetry slam, which will happen at 2pm on April 16th, 2011 in Eppley Auditorium, Midland University, 900 N. Clarkson, Fremont, NE 68025, and we would like to invite your students to participate and/or attend. The slam is open to all high school students, and will happen between preliminary rounds of competition at the Pile-Up, which will happen

The winning student takes home a $100 cash prize, followed by $75 for second place, $50 for third, and $25 for fourth.

Admission and registration are both free, though there is a suggested $7 donation at the door (which will go to the Nebraska Writers Collective).

2010 was my first full year as Executive Director, and it was a joy to see some great new things started by the NWC.

Poets On Loan

Our main project is the Poets On Loan program which sends teams of poets into schools to work directly with students on goals such as a publication or public poetry events. While a number of our teaching poets are performance-minded, many others are academically trained. Their diversity helps to introduce students to the wide spectrum that is poetry today. It’s a way of helping students and teachers by bringing in energetic and talented poets to get them excited about poetry. And it’s also a program meant to help poets, as we work to pay our poets rather than ask them to work as volunteers. Too often, I’ve seen talented poets leave us to move to Denver or Chicago, so this is one small step in reversing that.
Poets On Loan is in place at 5 schools already: Westside Middle School, Ralston High School, Omaha Central, Lincoln High, and Abe Lincoln in Council Bluffs. We add Omaha Public Schools’ Integrated Learning Program this spring.

To keep adding schools, of course, we need help. We pay our poets, but we don’t charge the schools. Yes, I know, in a capitalistic culture, this is not the normal way things happen. But neither is writing rhyming couplets to explore our places in the universe, so what would you expect from an organization working mainly with poetry? True to our calling, we do our work and hope that people in our community such as yourselves can help us not only keep our mission going but help us expand.

Other Nebraska Writers Collective Programs

While Poets On Loan is our main focus, your contributions also help our other projects which include publishing local authors and bringing touring poets through our area. Recently, we helped publish Filling The Empty Room, an anthology of over 60 Nebraska and Iowa poets which came out from Morpo Press with our help and the help of the Seven Doctors Project in 2010. And this spring, we will help Creighton University bring the spoken word touring group Whirlwind Collective. We will also partner with Midland University to put on the 4th Great Plains Poetry Pile-Up, a poetry slam competition bringing in champion poets from around the country.

Give Today to Support Poetry

We support poetry and we support more people discovering poetry of all styles. In return, we ask that you support us by contributing to the Nebraska Writers Collective, a 501c3 nonprofit. A contribution as small as $20 can help bring an hour of hands-on poetry to a classroom full of students. In today’s economy, we take donations in half-hour increments too.

Please help by sending a check to the Nebraska Writers Collective, 9712 N 34th St, Omaha NE 68112.

All the best,
Matt Mason

We’ve implemented the site changes. If you see anything funky let us know and we’ll give you a free cookie.*

We need pictures to punch up some of the pages. If you have anything appropriate send it to Matt or Andrew so we can make this site as beautiful as the people who visit it.

Yeah, that’s right — you’re beautiful. Mr. Rogers told us so.

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We’re tweaking the site a bit (and by a bit we mean changing everything), so either get out while the gettin’s good or roll with the quake till the dust settles.

If you’ve visited the site before be sure to hold down the Ctrl key while clicking Refresh or pressing F5 after all the changes are implemented. That clears your browser cache for this site and ensures all the new stuff loads properly.

Thanks!

Okay, so how could I NOT be excited? I edited the anthology of local poets, I’m Executive Director of the organization holding the fundraiser, it’s a big day on all fronts and I’m excited. And with music by Bill Hoover, All Young Girls Are Machine Guns, and Bill Hoover, food by Dixie Quick’s, it’s got all the makings of a glorious day.

That’s Saturday, May 8, 4-6pm, 1915 Leavenworth Street in Omaha.

Yay,
Matt

Filling The Empty Room

The NWC is looking for a new logo design. Remuneration will consist of our eternal gratitude, a dope addition to your professional portfolio, notoriety among your poetic and artistic peers, and the sweet, sweet taste of having beaten down all other comers. I might even buy you a sandwich. Well, we DO have money in our coffers, so we can even pay $100 to the winner.

Think: bold. Think: iconic. Think Luba Lukova meets Andy Warhol. Or Frank Kozick meets Mike Lomanto. Or something even cooler.

We need a logo that photocopies well, is legible, recognizable, and looks fabulous both in color and in b&w.

Your designs will be accepted starting yesterday and until there is an obvious winner. We’ll wait at least until our May BoD meeting (Sunday the 16th) to make a selection, so that you’ll have plenty of time to devise and submit your fantastic and soon-to-be famous iconic image. Multiple submissions are hunky dory.

Submissions may be sent as email attachments to bod@newriters.org. Please send files that could be opened on your grandma’s computer (or on my grandma’s computer, if yours is savvy).

Aaaand: GO!!!

It’s a book release for Filling The Empty Room, an anthology of over 60 local poets who read in the Organism reading series this past November!  It’s ALSO a fundraiser for the NWC at Dixie Quicks (1915 Leavenworth Street, Omaha) from 4-6pm on Saturday, May 8th!

As a non-profit dedicated to putting poets into schools, we hope to raise a fair amount so we can assist teachers this year.

There will be music by Michael Campbell, Bill Hoover, and All Young Girls Are Machine Guns as well as some fine snacks and great people!

$20 suggested donation (for those giving $20 or more, you get a copy of the anthology)

If you’re on Facebook, rsvp to the event at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=107089472657681&ref=mf

Marc Smith (“So What!”), the founder of Slam Poetry, is coming to Omaha to read poems for us, courtesy of the NWC.  Here are the details:

March 23rd, 730pm, Omaha Healing Arts Center (13th and Howard). There is a $7 suggested donation at the door.

If that’s not enough poetry for you, come check out the Omaha vs. Lincoln team bouts on the 16th of March at the RNG Gallery (20th and Leavenworth, next to Dixie Quick’s) at 7pm, or the Omaha Slam (also at the Healing Arts Center) this Saturday (March 13th) at 7:30.

For more poetry news and events around Nebraska, check out the Poetry Menu.

Yes! We have a brand new website.

But don’t worry – everything will be up and running within a few days. Expect some fairly drastic aesthetic change, as well as things like content.

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