The Reader did a cool spread in their latest issue on the upcoming (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest to go along with Leo Adam Biga’s article “Lit Fest delves into what we fear, how we relate in extremis.” The article features some choice quotes from Lit Fest Director Timothy Schaffert and a few participating authors, myself included, for the October 16 & 17 event.

The issue is currently out all over Omaha, so pick up a copy if you see one. Or, read the article here, on the The Reader‘s webpage. Here an excerpt:

Ted Wheeler, author of the chapbook On the River, Down Where They Found Willy Brown and the related novel Kings of Broken Things, says, “So much of interesting literature is about social outcasts. I see that as the central duty of a writer – to tell the stories that shouldn’t be told, to make personal demons public, to dredge up buried history or explore the parts of society that have been pushed out to the margins. The literary writer’s job is to say what can’t be said in polite company.”

Schaffert says the work of Wheeler, Wesselman and fellow panelist Marilyn June Coffey has “a kind of mythology, whether folklore or historical incident or ancient mythology.”

Wheeler explores Will Brown’s 1919 lynching in Omaha.

“My main intention was to give it treatment in a way I hadn’t seen done in any history books. The trick wasn’t really in explaining why this horrible event happened here, but more about resisting the urge to rationalize a mass act of treachery by exploring what it was like to be at a race riot and get caught up it the swerve of violent extremism.

“What’s interesting to me and what’s unspeakable about it in a certain way is this point where mundane life intersects with a notorious crime.”

Thanks to writer Leo Adam Biga for this.

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Also, one last reminder. Opening night for the Pageturners Lounge Literary Pub Quiz (PTLLPQ for short) is this Wednesday, October 7 at 9pm. (Go here for more information. Or here.) In addition to some first-rate trivia, prizes, drinks, etc., we’re also featuring Timothy Schaffert as our guest co-quizmaster for the night. I’ll have a few questions just for Timothy about this year’s LitFest and his own popular novels (The Swan Gondola, Coffins of Little Hope). It will be fun. Even if the trivia is a total disaster, come laugh at me make a fool of myself. You can’t lose!