Author: Ted Wheeler

Race, Gender, Violence, and Performed Identities: Tonight at Indigo Bridge Books with Julie Iromuanya!

| Ted Wheeler

If you’re in Lincoln tonight and free for the evening, come out to Indigo Bridge Books (701 P Street, in the Creamery Building) at 7pm to hear me read from my chapbook, On the River, Down Where They Found Willy Brown. I’ll be opening for Julie Iromuanya, who will read from her debut novel from Coffee House Press, Mr. and Mrs. Doctor, with a joint Q&A session to follow. It will be fun and should produce some good discussion. The event is titled Race, Gender, Violence, and Performed Identities.

Indigo Bridge Books and their event guru Jeff Moscaritolo have been amazing to work with, both for this event and in their stocking and display of my chapbook in the store. Lincoln is lucky to have such an awesome independent bookshop with the means and spirit to support writers like this, something that was desperately lacking when I grew up there.

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And while we’re at it: Happy Book Birthday, Julie!

Mr. and Mrs. Doctor features the story of Ifi and Job, a Nigerian couple in an arranged marriage, who begin their lives together in Nebraska with a single, outrageous lie: that Job is a doctor, not a college dropout. Unwittingly, Ifi becomes his co-conspirator—that is until his first wife, Cheryl, whom he married for a green card years ago, reenters the picture and upsets Job’s tenuous balancing act.

Julie Iromuanya is a writer, scholar, and educator. Born and raised in the American Midwest, she is the daughter of Igbo Nigerian immigrants. Her creative writing has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Passages North, Cream City Review, and the Tampa Review, among other journals. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she was a Presidential Fellow and award-winning teacher. Learn more about Julie at her website: julieiromuanya.com.

Happy Book Birthday: Quiet City by Susan Aizenberg

| Ted Wheeler

quiet cityCongratulations are in order for Susan Aizenberg on the publication of her new collection of poems from BkMk Books, Quiet City. Way to go, Susan!

One of the great literary treasures of Omaha, Susan has taught me numerous times during my stints at Creighton University–despite being a poet, she taught me everything I know. Her guidance has been invaluable both on a professional and personal level, particularly when I became a father while in grad school back in 2007. I couldn’t be happier for Susan on the occasion of her third book.

If you’re in the Omaha area, come out to the publication party for Quiet City on Wednesday, May 6, at 730pm, Solid Jackson Books. (See the above link for more details.)

Here’s a bit about the book:

Many of these poems are set in the mid-twentieth century and feature such personae as writers Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams and photographer Roman Vishniac, as well as less-public figures in Brooklyn, Nebraska, and elsewhere, all of whom confront the wounds of love, family, history, and time. ”In poem after poem,” David Jauss writes, Aizenberg ”reveals an astonishingly wide-ranging and deeply empathetic imagination, not to mention the eye of a painter and the ear of a musician.” ”Aizenberg’s vision is clear, her language exact, and her music is perfectly pitched,” writes Betsy Sholl, a past poet laureate of Maine. ”These are keenly intelligent poems navigating the distance and circuitous route between grief and its redemption.” Poet Kathy Fagan writes, ”Aizenberg’s Quiet City reminds us how the wounds of history keep on wounding both in our homes and the larger world.”

Appearance on Platte River Sampler to Air this Thursday (4/23) at 6pm

| Ted Wheeler

Have you lately been curious what my voice sounds like? Do you want to hear me answer questions about my latest work? Well, you’re in luck, as I’ll be reading from my chapbook On the River, Down Where They Found Willy Brown this Thursday, April 23 on The Platte River Sampler radio program. The segment will air between 6 and 7 pm.

If you live in the Lincoln/Lancaster County area you can listen on KZUM community radio, 89.3 on the FM dial. The station can also be streamed live here (http://www.kzum.org/) by clicking on the player at the top left of the page.

The Platte River Sampler is “a weekly exploration of original prose, poetry, drama, songwriting and more, all from Nebraska.”

Be sure to listen live if you can. But if you can’t, a podcast version should be online within a couple weeks.

Thanks so much to producer and host Phil Schupbach for putting this together.

A Couple Photos from AWP

| Ted Wheeler

Check me out signing copies of my chapbook at Boulevard‘s book fair table in Minneapolis last weekend. Thanks again to Boulevard and Managing Editor Jessica Rogen (pictured) for being such gracious and enthusiastic hosts.

I took a few years off from the AWP Conference after leaving Prairie Schooner, so it was good to be back this year to catch up with old friends and touch base with some cool editors and journals. It was great having a large contingent from Creighton make the trip up as well. Lots of fun. See you next year in LA, writer folks!

Happy Book Birthday: The Jazz Palace by Mary Morris

| Ted Wheeler
Click the cover. Buy the book.

Congratulations are in order for Mary Morris, whose new novel The Jazz Palace is now officially released from Nan A. Talese!

Mary led the workshop I was a part of at the Key West Literary Seminar in 2014, which is when I first heard about The Jazz Palace. For those interested in literary historical fiction, particularly historical fiction set in the Midwest, don’t miss out on this one.

A bit about the book:

Acclaimed author Mary Morris returns to her Chicago roots in this sweeping novel that brilliantly captures the dynamic atmosphere and the dazzling music of the Jazz Age.
     In the midst of boomtown Chicago, two Jewish families have suffered terrible blows. The Lehrmans, who run a small hat factory, lost their beloved son Harold in a blizzard. The Chimbrovas, who run a saloon, lost three of their boys on the SS Eastland when it sank in 1915. Each family holds out hope that one of their remaining children will rise to carry on the family business. But Benny Lehrman has no interest in making hats. His true passion is piano—especially jazz.
     At night he sneaks down to the South Side, slipping into predominantly black clubs to hear jazz groups play. One night he is called out and asked to “sit in” on a group. His playing is first-rate, and the other musicians are impressed. One of them, the trumpeter, a black man named Napoleon, becomes Benny’s close friend and musical collaborator, and their adventures together take Benny far from the life he knew as a delivery boy. Pearl Chimbrova recognizes their talent and invites them to start playing at her family’s saloon, which Napoleon dubs “The Jazz Palace.”
     But Napoleon’s main gig is at a mob establishment, which doesn’t take too kindly to freelancing. And as the ’20s come to a close and the bubble of prosperity collapses, Benny, Napoleon, and Pearl must all make hard choices between financial survival and the music they love.

Wheeler Schedules Book Signing at AWP Conference in Minneapolis

| Ted Wheeler

The proof edition of On the River, Down Where They Found Willy Brown.

As the headline tells, I’ll be signing copies of my chapbook On the River, Down Where They Found Willy Brown on Saturday, April 11 at the 2015 AWP Conference & Bookfair in Minneapolis from 10:30 am to 11:30 am. You can find me hanging out with Boulevard in the bookfair at table 1924.

If you’re using the schedule builder on the AWP website, be sure to add it to your itinerary with just a click at this page.

I’ll have copies available for purchase for $3. Boulevard will also be bringing a few copies of their four back issues that feature my work, which is pretty cool. If you’re looking to build up your Wheeler archive–who isn’t, these days?–this would be a good place to start.

Thanks so much to Jessica Rogen and Boulevard for sharing their exhibition space with me!

AWP Book Signing / AWP Conference & Bookfair / Minneapolis Convention Center

Saturday, April 11 / 1030a-1130a / Boulevard Table (1924)