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The Little Blog That Could
The Little Blog That Could
Eight years ago saw the full launch of this writer’s blog, Leo Adam Biga’s My Inside Stories. In the span of that time this blog, whose link is https://leoadambiga.com. has received more than 750,000 views. Not bad for a non-monetized site that doesn’t utilize any SEO tools or analytics. For the most part, it’s just me posting my previously published journalism, though in recent years I have created some original content for the blog with my Hot Movie Takes and Hot Husker Takes.
My blog has more than 1,100 followers. I appreciate the interest and support from these followers. If you’re not among them, then I invite you to become one.
The simple idea behind the blog is to share my diverse work with wider audiences than the folks who might ordinarily see it in print or online.
The blog serves an important function by adding to my brand as a writer – “I write about people, their passions and their magnificent obsessions” – and creating an archive of my work. Just give it a visit and you’ll see within seconds, certainly minutes, how that tagline of passions and obsessions gets expressed in the stories posted there. The blog is heavy in arts, entertainment, culture. social justice, community and history subjects. There are lots of personality profiles.
The stories extend from the 1990s right on through today.
I also maintain a companion Facebook page, My Inside Stories (https://www.facebook.com/LeoAdamBiga), that features the same content and some unique content of its own. That Facebook page has more than 1,200 followers. Once again, I appreciate the interest and support and if you’re not among those followers, then please join in on the fun.
The blog and the page are best enjoyed by people who enjoy the written word and are looking for alternative content outside the mainstream.
The blog and page also highlight some of my activities as a film educator, presenter, programmer and as a book author.
On the business side, the sites provide work samplers for anyone in the market for written content. I am a writer for hire to produce everything from press releases, newsletters and scripts to articles, white papers and books. If you like what you read on the blog and the page, then let’s connect and talk about what project needs I can fulfill for you.
Contact me here, via email at leo32158@cox.net or by phone at 402-445-4666.
Let me share your passion or magnificent obsession with the world. Everyone has a story: Let me tell yours.
A Year’s Worth of Writing for Omaha Magazine by Leo Adam Biga
A Year’s Worth of Writing for Omaha Magazine
by Leo Adam Biga
http://omahamagazine.com/articles/author/leo-adam-biga/
(November-December 2017 through November-December 2018)
Holiday book sale: “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film”
Holiday book sale:
“Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film”
by Leo Adam Biga
For you and/or the film lover in your life
Retails at $26
Now on sale for $20 directly from me
(while supplies last)
Acclaimed filmmaker Alexander Payne uses satire to take the measure of his times. Award-winning writer Leo Adam Biga draws on 20 years covering the writer-director to take the measure of this singular cinema artist and his work.
Film scholar-author Thomas Schatz (“The Genius of the System”) said:
“This is without question the single best study of Alexander Payne’s films, as well as the filmmaker himself and his filmmaking process. In charting the first two decades of Payne’s remarkable career, Leo Adam Biga pieces together an indelible portrait of an independent American artist.This is an invaluable contribution to film history and criticism – and a sheer pleasure to read as well.”
National film critic Leonard Maltin said: “Alexander Payne is one of American cinema’s leading lights. How fortunate we are that Leo Biga has chronicled his rise to success so thoroughly.”
Available at this special sale price only by contacting me here or at:
402-445-4666 or leo32158@co.net
If you want a copy mailed to you, send a check for $25 (includes shipping and handling) made out to Leo A. Biga, along with your return address, to:
Leo A. Biga
10629 Cuming St.
Omaha, NE 68114
Please indicate if you wish a signed copy.
Faces and Places, Covers and Pages from this writer/reporter’s notebook
Life Itself XIX: Set the Scene True Life Stories
Life Itself XIX:
Set the Scene True Life Stories
Southern Fried Love Road Trip Diary II
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/08/12/southern-fried-l…ad-trip-diary-ii
Southern Fried Love Road Trip Diary I
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/06/01/a-southern-road-trip-diary
Goin’ down the Lincoln Highway with Omaha music guru Nils Anders Erickson
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/10/01/goin-down-the-li…-anders-erickson/
Stretch of the Lincoln Highway in Elkhorn, Neb.
Leo Biga’s Journey in the Pipeline; Following The Champ, Terence “Bud” Crawford in Africa
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/10/14/leo-bigas-journe…awford-in-africa
The Champ Goes to Africa: Terence Crawford Visits Uganda and Rwanda with his former teacher, this reporter and friends
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/06/26/the-champ-goes-t…rter-and-friends
Omaha history salvager Frank Horejsi: Dream calls for warehouse to become a museum
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/03/11/omaha-history-sa…-become-a-museum
Omaha Corpus Christi procession draws hundreds
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/06/13/omaha-corpus-chr…n-draws-hundreds
Iraq War veteran Jacob Hausman battles PTSD and finds peace
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/10/31/iraq-war-veteran…-and-finds-peace/
A Hospice House Story: How Phil Hummel’s End of Life Journey in Hospice Gave His Family Peace of Mind and Granted Him a Gentle, Dignified Death
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/10/27/a-hospice-house-…-dignified-death
Extremities: As seen on TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive” – Mary Thompson takes her life back one piece at a time
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/19/extremities
Greg Pivovar, owner of the Stadium View shop, poses in his store in Omaha, Neb., Thursday, May 27, 2010. Pivovar is a one-man welcoming committee for College World Series fans. The Omaha attorney greets every (legal age) customer with a free can of beer and nudges them toward the barbecue, brats or, when LSU is in town, seafood jambalaya.(AP Photo/Nati Harnik) — AP
The Little People’s Ambassador at the College World Series
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/26/the-little-peopl…ege-world-series
The History Man, Gary Kastrick, and his Project OMAHA lose home base
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/10/03/gary-kastricks-p…es-its-home-base/
The Bone Hunter: Paleontologist Michael Voorhies Uncovers Dinosaur Fossils
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/08/02/the-bone-hunter
Dr. Michael Voorhies
Dream catcher Lew Hunter: Screenwriting guru of the Great Plains
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/09/dream-catcher-lew-hunter/
After whirlwind tenure as Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser goes gently back to the prairie, to where the wild plums grow
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/19/after-a-whirlwin…-wild-plums-grow/
Keeper of the Flame: Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/19/keeper-of-the-fl…inner-ted-kooser/
Verne Holoubek’s Road Less Traveled: How Harley Davidson, Printed T-Shirts, and the Counter-Culture Movement Helped this Former Nebraska Farm Boy Make Pop Culture History
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/09/the-road-less-traveled
Goodwin’s Spencer Street Barber Shop: We Cut Heads and Broaden Minds, Too
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/04/29/goodwins-spencer…roaden-minds-too/
Freedom riders: A get on the bus inauguration diary
From the Archives: A Road Trip Sideways
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/10/21/get-on-the-bus-a…-ride-to-freedom/
Therman Statom works with children to create glass houses and more
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/31/glass-artist-the…kids-art-brigade
Linda Walker of Bay Shore, New York lifts her hand in prayer as President Barack Obama is sworn in as 44th president of the United States in Washington on Tuesday Jan. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/ St. Petersburg Times, Martha Rial) ** TAMPA OUT. USA TODAY OUT. HERNANDO TODAY OUT. CITRUS COUNTY CHRONICLE OUT **
Crowds gather on the National Mall in Washington for the swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
Polishing Gem: Behind the scenes of John Beasley Theater & Workshop’s staging of August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean”
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/05/29/polishing-gem-be…gem-of-the-ocean/
Back in the Day: Native Omaha Days is reunion, homecoming, heritage celebration and party all in one
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/06/11/back-in-the-day-…party-all-in-one/
It’s a Hoops Culture at The SAL, Omaha’s Best Rec Basketball League
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/06/its-a-hoops-cult…asketball-league
Hadley Heavin’s Idiosyncratic Journey as a Real Rootin-Tootin, Classical Guitar Playing Cowboy
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/01/a-real-rootin-to…r-playing-cowboy
Omaha’s Grand Old Lady, The Orpheum Theater
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/08/02/omahas-grand-old…-orpheum-theater
Alexander Payne’s Circuitous Journey to His Wine Country Film Comedy
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/10/28/from-the-archive…ntry-film-comedy
My Midwest Baseball Odyssey Diary
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/11/my-midwest-baseball-odyssey-diary/
UNO Wrestling Retrospective – Way of the Warrior, House of Pain, Day of Reckoning
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/08/21/a-three-part-uno…day-of-reckoning/
The Downtown Boxing Club’s House of Discipline
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/04/the-downtown-box…se-of-discipline
Heart and Soul: Kenny Wingo and Dutch Gladfelter Keep it Real at the Downtown Boxing Club
https://leoadambiga.com/2018/09/28/heart-and-soul-k…town-boxing-club/
New school ringing in Liberty for students
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/06/new-school-ringi…rty-for-students
Bobby Bridger’s Rendezvous
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/11/bobby-bridgers-rendezvous
A Passion for Conservation: Tara Kennedy
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/11/25/a-passion-for-co…ion-tara-kennedy
A Rosenblatt Tribute
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/19/a-rosenblatt-tribute/
ER, An Emergency Room Journal
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/16/er
Merciful Armies of the Night, A Ride-Along with Paramedics
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/16/merciful-armies-of-the-night
War and Peace: Bosnian refugees purge war’s horrors in song and dance that make plea for harmony
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/08/18/war-and-peace/
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Bertha’s Battle: Bertha Calloway, the Grand Lady of Lake Street, struggles to keep the Great Plains Black History Museum afloat
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/11/berthas-battle
Favorite Sons: Weekly Omaha pasta feeds at Sons of Italy Hall draw diverse crowd
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/04/28/favorite-sons-we…lse-little-italy/
Santa Lucia Festival, Omaha Style
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/07/05/santa-lucia-festival/
Devotees hold fast to Latin rite
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/15/devotees-hold-fa…o-the-latin-rite/
Show goes on at Omaha Community Playhouse, where Henry Fonda and Dorothy McGuire got their start
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/08/04/the-show-goes-on/
From the Archives: Opera comes alive behind the scenes at Opera Omaha staging of Donizetti’s “Maria Padilla” starring Renee Fleming
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/09/26/from-the-archive…ing-rene-fleming
It was a different breed then: Omaha Stockyards remembered
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/06/24/it-was-a-differe…yards-remembered/
Separate Voices, Separate Lives: The Alien Abduction Chronicles
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/11/separate-voices-…ction-chronicles
Life Itself XVII: To All the Writers I’ve Loved Before – 25 Years of Stories About Writers and Writing
Life Itself XVII:
To All the Writers I’ve Loved Before – 25 Years of Stories About Writers and Writing
Noah Diaz making run for his dream at Yale School of Drama and theater companies nationwide
https://leoadambiga.com/2018/08/05/noah-diaz-making…anies-nationwide
Journalist-author Genoways takes micro and macro look at the U.S, food system
https://leoadambiga.com/2018/06/06/journalist-autho…u-s-food-syystem
Things coming full circle for Doug Marr, Phil’s Diner Series and Circle Theatre
https://leoadambiga.com/2018/04/24/things-coming-fu…d-circle-theatre/
Doug Marr and wife Laura Marr
A book a day keeps the blues aways for avid reader and writer Ashley Xiques
https://leoadambiga.com/2017/03/03/a-book-a-day-kee…er-ashley-xiques
Voyager Bud Shaw gives up scalpel for pen
https://leoadambiga.com/2017/04/20/voyager-bud-shaw…-scalpel-for-pen
Kevin Simonson on Interviewing Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut
https://leoadambiga.com/2017/03/05/kevin-simonson-o…nd-kurt-vonnegut/
Literary star Ron Hansen revisits the Old West in new novel “The Kid”
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/08/25/literary-star-ro…ew-novel-the-kid/
Ron Hansen
Noah Diaz:
Metro theater’s man for all seasons and stages
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/07/19/noah-diaz-metro-…asons-and-stages
Old Hollywood hand living in Omaha comes out of the shadows: Screenwriter John Kaye scripted “American Hot Wax” and more
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/01/30/old-hollywood-ha…hot-wax-and-more
Bomb girl Zedeka Poindexter draws on family, food and angst for her poetry
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/03/11/zedeka-poindexte…t-for-her-poetry/
Playwright turned history detective Max Sparber turns identity search inward
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/02/07/playwright-turne…ty-search-inward/
Paul Johnsgard:
A birder’s road less traveled
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/06/24/paul-johnsgard-a…ad-less-traveled
Lew Hunter’s small town Nebraska boy made good in Hollywood story is a doozy
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/02/25/lew-hunters-smal…story-is-a-doozy
Lew Hunter with Francis Ford Coppola
Alesia Lester: A Conversation in the Gossip Salon
https://leoadambiga.com/2016/03/09/alesia-lester-a-…the-gossip-salon/
Hardy’s one-man “A Christmas Carol” highlights Dickens-themed literary festival
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/11/03/hardys-one-man-a…iterary-festival/
Omaha World-Herald columnist Mike Kelly:
A storyteller for all seasons
https://leoadambiga.com/2014/04/02/omaha-world-hera…-for-all-seasons/
Mike Kelly
Creative couple: Bob and Connie Spittler and their shared creative life 60 years in the making
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/12/23/bob-and-connie-s…rs-in-the-making/
A WASP’s racial tightrope resulted in enduring book partially set in 1960s Omaha
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/10/28/a-wasps-racial-t…t-in-1960s-omaha/
Alex Kava:
Bestselling mystery author still going strong
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/11/03/alex-kava-bestse…ill-going-strong/
Yolonda Ross adds writer-director to actress credits; In new movies by Mamet and Sayles as her own “Breaking Night” makes festival circuit
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/02/28/yolonda-ross-add…festival-circuit/
Omahans put spin on Stephen King’s “The Shining” – Jason Levering leads stage adaptation of horror classic to benefit Benson Theatre Project
https://leoadambiga.com/2014/03/17/omahans-put-thei…-theatre-project
Omaha author Timothy Schaffert delivers again with his new novel, “The Swan Gondola”
https://leoadambiga.com/2014/03/07/omaha-author-tim…the-swan-gondola/
Timothy Schaffert
The Omaha Star celebrates 75 years of black woman legacy
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/04/11/the-omaha-star-c…ack-woman-legacy/
Ex-reporter Eileen Wirth pens book on Nebraska women in journalism and their leap from society page to front page
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/03/22/ex-reporter-eile…ge-to-front-page/
Bob Hoig’s unintended entree into journalism leads to career six decades strong
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/01/25/bob-hoigs-uninte…cades-strong-now/
Wounded Knee still battleground for some per new book by journalist-author Stew Magnuson
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/04/20/wounded-knee-sti…or-stew-magnuson/
Omaha native Steve Marantz looks back at city’s ’68 racial divide through prism of hoops in new book, “The Rhythm Boys of Omaha Central”
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/04/01/omaha-native-ste…of-omaha-central/
From the heart: Tunette Powell tells it like it is
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/03/10/from-the-heart-t…ls-it-like-it-is/
Finding her voice: Tunette Powell comes out of the dark and into the spotlight
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/01/24/finding-her-voic…to-the-spotlight/
Omowale Akintunde film “Wigger” deconstructs what race means in a faux post-racial world
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/21/deconstructing-w…ost-racial-world/
Beware the Singularity, singing the retribution blues: New works by Rick Dooling
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/10/10/beware-the-singu…-by-rick-dooling/
Richard Dooling
Lit Fest delves into what we fear, how we relate in extremis
https://leoadambiga.com/2015/10/09/lit-fest-delves-…late-in-extremis/
Omaha Lit Fest puts focus on Women Writers and Women in Publishing
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/10/06/omaha-lit-fest-p…en-in-publishing
Omaha Lit Fest Offers a Written Word Feast
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/10/18/omaha-lit-fest-o…itten-word-feast
Writing close to her heart: Author Joy Castro
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/11/23/author-joy-castr…in-two-new-books/
Ron Hull reviews his remarkable life in public television in new memoir
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/10/06/8945/
Ferial Pearson, award-winning educator dedicated to inclusion and social justice, helps students publish the stories of their lives
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/08/25/ferial-pearson-a…s-of-their-lives
Lit Fest brings author Carleen Brice back home flush with success of first novel, “Orange Mint and Honey”
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/07/02/lit-fest-brings-…e-mint-and-honey/
Novel’s mother-daughter thing makes it to the screen
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/10/26/novel’s-mother-d…it-to-the-screen
Carleen Brice
Sun reflection: Revisiting the Omaha Sun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of Boys Town
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/04/28/sun-reflection-r…ose-on-boys-town
Alexander Payne and Kaui Hart Hemmings on the symbiosis behind his film and her novel “The Descendants” and how she helped get Hawaii right
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/01/23/alexander-payne-…get-hawaii-right/
Thy kingdom come: Richard Dooling’s TV teaming with Stephen King
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/08/16/thy-kingdom-come…ith-stephen-king/
Buffalo Bill’s Coming Out Party Courtesy Author-Balladeer Bobby Bridger
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/09/06/buffalo-bills-co…er-bobby-bridger/
The Worth of Things Explored by Sean Doolittle in his New Crime Novel “The Cleanup”
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/07/02/the-worth-of-thi…ovel-the-cleanup/
When Safe Isn’t Safe at All, Author Sean Doolittle Spins a Home Security Cautionary Tale
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/08/19/when-safe-isnt-s…-cautionary-tale/
Acclaimed Author and Nebraska New Wave Literary Leader Timothy Schaffert
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/18/nebraska-new-wav…imothy-schaffert/
A Man of His Words, Nebraska State Poet William Kloefkorn
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/07/07/a-man-of-his-wor…illiam-kloefkorn/
JACOB HANNAH / Lincoln Journal Star
Kurt Andersen’s new novel “True Believers” revisits 1960s through reformed radical breaking her silence
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/07/28/kurt-andersens-n…king-her-silence/
Dissecting Jesse James
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/10/10/dissecting-jesse-james
Ron Hansen’s masterful outlaw blues novel about Jesse James and Robert Ford faithfully interpreted on screen
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/07/27/ron-hansens-mast…preted-on-screen
Playwright Carlos Murillo’s work explores personal mythmaking
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/07/26/playwright-carlo…sonal-mythmaking
The Many Worlds of Science Fiction Author Robert Reed
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/06/22/the-many-worlds-…thor-robert-reed
He knows it when he sees it: Journalist-social critic Robert Jensen finds patriarchy and white supremacy in porn
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/06/17/i-know-it-when-i…upremacy-in-porn
Litniks Unite! The Downtown Omaha Lit Fest brings writers, artists and readers together in celebration of the written word
Omaha Lit Fest: In praise of writers and their words: Jami Attenberg and Will Clarke among featured authors
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/06/19/omaha-lit-fest-i…featured-authors/
Omaha playwright Beaufield Berry comes into her own with original comedy “Psycho Ex Girlfriend”
https://leoadambiga.com/2013/04/20/omaha-playwright…iend-now-playing/
Omaha Lit Fest: “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like”
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/10/07/omaha-lit-fest-p…-thing-they-like/
Martin Landau and Nik Fackler discuss working together on “Lovely, Still” and why they believe so strongly in each other and in their new film
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/09/23/martin-landau-an…-in-the-new-film/
Martin Landau and Nik Fackler
“Lovely, Still,” that rare film depicting seniors in all their humanity, earns writer-director Nik Fackler Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/12/03/lovely-still-tha…first-screenplay/
Filmmaker Nik Fackler’s magic realism reaches the big screen in “Lovely, Still”
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/18/when-dreams-that…neath-do-surface
Nik Fackler, the Film Dude Establishes Himself a Major New Cinema Figure with “Lovely, Still”
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/18/the-film-dude-es…ew-cinema-figure/
Writers Joy Castro and Amelia Maria de la Luz Montes explore being women of color who go from poverty to privilege
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/05/12/writers-joy-cast…rty-to-privilege/
Being Jack Moskovitz: Grizzled former civil servant and DJ, now actor and fiction author, still waiting to be discovered
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/09/05/being-jack-mosko…to-be-discovered/
With his new novel, “The Coffins of Little Hope,” Timothy Schaffert’s back delighting in the curiosities of American Gothic
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/04/13/with-his-new-nov…-american-gothic/
Timothy Schaffert Gets Down and Dirty with his New Novel “Devils in the Sugar Shop”
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/08/29/timothy-schaffer…n-the-sugar-shop/
Rachel Shukert’s anything but a travel agent’s recommended guide to a European grand tour
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/09/05/rachel-shukerts-…opean-grand-tour/
Author Rachel Shukert: A nice Jewish girl gone wild and other regrettable stories
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/09/05/author-rachel-sh…rettable-stories/
Rachel Shukert
After whirlwind tenure as Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser goes gently back to the prairie, to where the wild plums grow
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/19/after-a-whirlwin…-wild-plums-grow/
Keeper of the Flame: Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/19/keeper-of-the-fl…inner-ted-kooser
Ted Kooser
Being Dick Cavett
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/12/04/being-dick-cavett-2/
Homecoming always sweet for Dick Cavett, the entertainment legend whose dreams of show biz Success were fired in Nebraska
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/12/04/homecoming-is-al…ed-in-nebraska-2/
Dick Cavett
Dream catcher Lew Hunter: Screenwriting guru of the Great Plains
http://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/09/dream-catcher-lew-hunter/
Q & A with playwright Caridad Svich, featured artist at Great Plains Theatre Conference
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/06/02/a-q-a-with-playw…eatre-conference/
Featured Great Plains Theatre Conference playwright Caridad Svich explores bicultural themes
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/05/29/featured-great-p…icultural-themes
Playwright-screenwriter John Guare talks shop on Omaha visit celebrating his acclaimed “Six Degrees of Separation”
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/06/02/playwright-john-…es-of-separation/
Attention must be paid: Arthur Kopit invokes Arthur Miller to describe Great Plains Theatre Conference focus on the work of playwrights
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/05/29/attention-must-b…s-and-their-work/
Q & A with Edward Albee: His thoughts on the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Jo Ann McDowell, Omaha and preparing a new generation of playwrights
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/05/29/a-q-a-with-edwar…n-of-playwrights/
Great Plains Theatre Conference ushers in new era of Omaha theater
https://leoadambiga.com/2011/05/28/great-plains-the…of-omaha-theater/
John Guare
Hard times ring sweet in the soulful words of singer-songwriter-author Laura Love, daughter of the late jazz man, Preston Love Sr.
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/05/01/hard-times-ring-…uthor-laura-love
Gospel playwright Llana Smith enjoys her Big Mama’s time
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/06/07/gospel-playwrigh…r-big-mamas-time
Blizzard Voices:
Stories from the Great White Shroud
https://leoadambiga.com/2018/07/27/blizzard-voices-…eat-white-shroud
Click Westin, back in the screenwriting game again at age 83
https://leoadambiga.com/2010/07/11/click-westin-bac…-again-at-age-83/
“The Bagel: An Immigrant’s Story” – Joan Micklin Silver and Matthew Goodman team up for new documentary
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/03/16/the-bagel-an-imm…documentary-film
Actor Peter Riegert makes fine feature directorial debut with “King of the Corner”
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Talking screenwriting with Hollywood heavyweight Hawk Ostby: Omaha Film Festival panelist counts “Children of Men” and “Iron Man” among credits
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Hawk Ostby
Tempting fate: Patrick Coyle film “Into Temptation” delivers gritty tale of working girl and idealistic priest in search of redemption
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Otis Twelve’s Radio Days
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Three old wise men of journalism – Hlavacek, Michaels and Desfor – recall their foreign correspondent careers and reflect on the world today
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John and Pegge Hlavacek’s globe-trotting adventures as foreign correspondents
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John Hlavacek
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Marguerita Washington: The woman behind the Star that never sets
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“Walking Behind to Freedom” – A musical theater examination of race
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Sacred Trust, Author Ron Hansen’s Fiction Explores Moral Struggles
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Jim Taylor, the other half of Hollywood’s top screenwriting team, talks about his work with Alexander Payne
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Author, humorist, folklorist Roger Welsch tells the stories of the American soul and soil
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K
Kurt Andersen
Ted Genoways Gives Voice to Rural Working Class
Ted Genoways
Gives Voice to Rural Working Class
Photography by Bill Sitzmann
Originally appeared in July-August 2018 issue of Omaha Magazine ( http://omahamagazine.com/articles/ted-genoways/)
Award-winning poet, journalist, editor, and author Ted Genoways of Lincoln, Nebraska, has long been recognized for his social justice writing as a contributor to Mother Jones, onEarth, Harper’s and other prestigious publications. While editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, the magazine won numerous national awards.
His recent nonfiction books—The Chain: Farm, Factory and the Fate of Our Food, and This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Farm—expand on his enterprise reporting about the land, the people who work it, and the food we consume from it. The themes of sustainability, big ag versus little ag, over-processing of food, and environmental threats are among many concerns he explores.
He often collaborates on projects with his wife, photographer Mary Anne Andrei.
His penchant for reporting goes back to his boyhood, when he put down stories people told him, even illustrating them, in a stapled “magazine” he produced. His adult work took root in the form of secondhand stories of his paternal grandfather toiling on Nebraska farms and in Omaha meatpacking plants.
His father noted this precociousness with words and made a pact that if young Ted read a book a week selected for him, he could escape chores.
“I thought that was a great deal,” Genoways says. “Reading John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men was the first time I remember being completely hooked. After that, I tore through everything Steinbeck wrote, and it made a huge impact on me. I thought, there’s real power in this—if you can figure out how to do it this well.”
Reading classics by Hemingway, Faulkner, and other great authors followed. The work of muckrakers such as Upton Sinclair made an impression. “But those Steinbeck books,” he says, “have always really stuck with me, and I go back to them and they really hold up.”
Exposing injustice—just as Steinbeck did with migrants and Sinclair did with immigrants—is what Genoways does. Nebraska Wesleyan professors Jim Schaffer and the late state poet of Nebraska William Kloefkorn influenced his journalism and poetry, respectively. Genoways doesn’t make hard and fast distinctions between the two forms. Regardless of genre, he practices a form of advocacy journalism but always in service of the truth.
“I’m always starting with the facts and trying to understand how they fit together,” he says. “There’s no question I’ve got a point of view. But I don’t show up with preconceived notions of what the story is.”
He’s drawn to “stories of people at the mercy of the system,” he says, admitting, “I’m interested in the little guy and in how people fight back against the powers that be.”
While working at the Minnesota State Historical Society Press, Genoways released a book of poems,Bullroarer: A Sequence, about his grandfather, and edited Cheri Register’s book Daughter of a Meatpacker. At the Virginia Quarterly, he looked into worker illnesses at a Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota, and the glut of Latinos at a Hormel plant in Fremont, Nebraska. He found a correlation between unsafe conditions due to ever-faster production lines—where only immigrants are willing to do the job—and the pressures brought to bear on company towns with influxes of Spanish-speaking workers and their families, some of them undocumented.
That led to examining the impact “a corporate level decision to run the line faster in order to increase production has up and down the supply chain” and on entire communities.
“That’s become an ongoing fascination for me,” Genoways says. “I can’t seem to stop coming back to what’s happening in meatpacking towns, which really seem to be on the front line of a lot of change in this country.”
The heated controversy around TransCanada Corp.’s plans for the Keystone XL pipeline ended up as the backdrop for his book, This Blessed Earth. He found “the specter of a foreign corporation coming and taking land by eminent domain” from legacy farmers and ranchers “and telling them they had to take on this environmental risk with few or no guarantees” to be yet another challenge weighing on the backs of producers.
His focus became a fifth-generation Nebraska farm family, the Hammonds, who grow soybeans, and how their struggles mirror all family farmers in terms of “how big to get and how much risk to assume.”
“They were especially intriguing because they were building this solar and wind-powered barn right in the path KXL decided to cross their land, and that seemed like a pretty great metaphor for that kind of defiance,” he says.
Pipeline or not, small farmers have plenty to worry about.
“Right now, everything in ag is geared toward getting bigger,” Genoways says. “The question facing the entire industry is: How big is big enough? What do we lose when we force farmers off the land or make them into businessmen more than stewards of the land? To my eye, you lose agri-CULTURE and are left with agri-BUSINESS.”
Farming as a way of life is endangered.
“Nebraska lost a thousand farms in 2017,” he says. “Those properties will be absorbed by larger operations. The ground will still be farmed. The connection between farmer and farm will be further stretched and strained. That’s the way everything has gone, and it’s how everything is likely to continue. Agribusiness interests argue these trends move us toward maximum yield with improved sustainability. But it also means decisions are made by fewer and fewer people. Mistakes and misjudgments are magnified. So we not only lose the culture of independence and responsibility that built rural communities, but grow more dependent on a version of America run by corporations.”
Chronicling the Hammonds left indelible takeaways—one being the varied skills farming requires.
“We saw them harvest a field of soybeans while keeping an eye on the futures trading and calling around to elevators to check on prices; they were making market decisions as sophisticated as any commodities trader,” Genoways says. “This is one of the major pressures on family farms. To survive, you have to be able to repair your own center pivot or broken tractor, but also be a savvy business owner—adapting early to technological changes and diversifying to insulate your operation.”
The Hammonds weathered the storm.
“They are doing well. They got good news when the Public Service Commission only approved the alternate route for KXL,” he says.
Meanwhile, Genoways sees an American food system in need of reform.
“We would benefit mightily from a national food policy,” he says. “How can you explain subsidizing production of junk food and simultaneously spending on obesity education? How do we justify unsustainable volumes of meat while counseling people to eat less meat? If we really want people to improve their eating habits, we should provide economic incentives in that direction.”
Visit tedgenoways.com for more information.
This article was printed in the July/August 2018 edition of Omaha Magazine.
Life Itself IX: Media and related articles from the analog past to today’s digital era
Ariel Roblin
Mike Kelly
Howard Silber
Warren Buffett, left, and Stan Lipsey at the Omaha Sun in the 1970s.
Doug Wesselmann, aka Otis Twelve
Mini-Profile
