Jessica Poli, Marco Abel, and Timothy Schaffert published More in Time: A Tribute to Ted Kooser (University of Nebraska Press, March 2021). To honor our former colleague, Pulitzer Prize winner, and two-term U.S. Poet Laureate, the editors assembled almost 70 contributions from Ted’s colleagues, friends, and former students. In addition to numerous poems, essays, and one short story, the volume includes a number of personal reflections on Ted’s legendary tutorials written by his former graduate mentees. The volume therefore does not just pay tribute to Ted’s career as a poet who has shaped Literary Nebraska like few other writers of his generation but also foregrounds his legacy as a teacher of the craft of poetry writing. The roster of contributors includes current department members Jonis Agee, Stephen Behrendt, Kwame Dawes, Saddiq Dzukogi, Amelia Montes, Katie Schmid, Hope Wabuke, and Stacey Waite, as well as numerous PhD graduates and our recently retired colleague Grace Bauer. The editors are grateful to all the contributors for their enthusiastic participation in this project; want to especially thank Pat Emile, longtime assistant editor of Ted’s American Life in Poetry column, for her help; and truly appreciate the University of Nebraska Press’s instant embrace of their idea for this project.

Marco Abel gave an extensive interview in the Berliner Gazette on films by contemporary German filmmakers Dominik Graf, Christoph Hochhäusler, and Christian Petzold (on whose work Marco has copiously written over the years) and their works’ relationship to German unification, East Germany, and neoliberalism. The interview -- “Im Geburtsloop: Zur Realisierung und Intensivierung des neoliberalen Potenzials im ‘wilden Osten’” -- is part of the Berliner Gazette’s “Black Box East: Unlocking Post-Communist Laboratories of Globalization” project, a year-long examination of how the annexation of East Germany by the West has transformed the former into a lab for neoliberal experimentation.

Kristi Carter and James Brunton are pleased to announce that their forthcoming, co-edited collection, TransNarratives: Scholarly and Creative Works on Transgender Experience , is due for publication by Women’s Press, an imprint of Canadian Scholars, in August of this year.

Arden Eli Hill’s collection of poems, Bloodwater Parish, an exploration of race, gender, disability, and adoption in southern Louisiana will be published in chapbook form by Seven Kitchen’s Press in November 2021 as part of the editor’s choice series. This is Arden’s first book published book.

Katie Marya and David Winter’s essay “Abandon This Palace of Language: On the Rhetoric of the Body in A Yellow Silence” has been published in the current issue of Writers: Craft &Context.

Jonathan Wlodarski had his story “Passion Bearer” published in the most recent issue of Ninth Letter.

With Summer Lukasiewicz, Executive Artistic Director of Flatwater Shakespeare, Steve Buhler co-taught a three-week course for UNL’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) program on “Shakespeare: Page, Stage, and Screen.” The final session was aided greatly by resources provided by MIT’s Global Shakespeares initiative, including the play-within-a-play Bollywood production number from Haider, director Vishal Bhardwaj’s adaptation of Hamlet.

Joy Castro read from her novel-in-progress Smoke, set in 1886 Key West, which was the rebel base for the Cuban anticolonial insurgency, at the inaugural Conference of the Center for José Martí Studies Affiliate at the University of Tampa on January 28 and served as a visiting writer at Ithaca College, February 11 &12.

On January 29, Julia Schleck delivered a national webinar on the basics of academic freedom with Joerg Tiede, hosted by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Katie Schmid Henson’s second unpublished poetry manuscript, so long a thrall, was a semi-finalist in the Jake Adam York Prize for poetry.

The Composition faculty want to take this opportunity to thank Keshia McClantoc and David Winter for their service as Assistant Directors Composition in 2020. (What a complex year it was!) We are pleased to announce the new Assistant Directors of Composition for the current year, Erika Luckert and Mark Houston.

Mark Houston came to UNL in 2017 after earning an MA in literature from Texas A&M in 2009 and teaching composition and literature as an adjunct at several colleges during the intervening years. His pedagogical interests include critical pedagogies of place, place-conscious and community writing, material rhetorics, and food justice.

Erika Luckert came to UNL in 2019 after completing an MFA in Poetry at Columbia University, and teaching composition, literature, and creative writing at Hunter College. Erika’s pedagogical interests include intersections between composition and creative writing pedagogies, including ways of teaching revision, peer feedback, and workshops.

A new initiative this year, they are facilitating teacher inquiry groups. Erika’s focuses on Anti-racist pedagogy and Mark’s is focused on how information and media literacy intersect with our work as classroom teachers. For more information on this or to talk further about writing instruction (in any context) feel free to contact them by email to set up a virtual time to chat: Mark: mark.houston@huskers.unl.edu; Erika: eluckert2@huskers.unl.edu.