This year, I’m turning 50! A lot of years ago, in 1998, I stepped into my first poetry reading with a notebook full of everything I didn’t yet have the courage to say out loud. I didn’t know anything about poet laureates, nonprofits, or budgets. Our 14-year signature program, All Writes Reserved, hadn’t even been imagined yet. But I found something that changed my life—a space where words mattered. A space that still lives in me today. Three years ago, I was honored to become Executive Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective. It’s been the most meaningful blending of my life in the arts and in community. It’s not always easy—but it is always worth it. What moves me most is this: the work gives even more to others than it’s given to me. ✨ Hundreds of students each year find their voices through All Writes Reserved. ✨ Our Writer’s Block program is connecting Teaching Artists with writers living in incarceration across Nebraska. ✨ We’ve crowned five Nebraska Youth Poet Laureates. ✨ We’ve published AND paid youth and adult poets alike through our NWC Press. So for my 50th, I’m inviting you to celebrate with me: 50 people donating $50 during the month of June. 💌 Each donor will receive a handwritten thank you with an original poem by an NWC Teaching Artist. 📚 Your gift directly supports the creation of a new All Writes Reserved Team—an investment in the next generation of storytellers. In a time when arts funding is uncertain, your support helps us stay loud, stay vibrant, and stay rooted in the power of story. Let’s make this birthday count. Let’s give voice to what matters. (fb)

Let’s look at spring in a different light. Every season has common representations and meanings, but these can be overused. Emily Anderson walks us through an exercise to move past cliché and perhaps find truth and magic in places we weren’t expecting. 🤔 ASK YOURSELF ▪ What would happen if we villainized, rather than romanticized, spring? ▪ Let’s say there are at least two sides to spring: what would you name them? ▪ Outside of plants, trees, flowers, where do you see the magic in springtime? 🎧 LISTEN ▪ “Young Toni Morrison interview (1977)” 3:42—5:11 [1 min 29 sec] 📖 READ ▪ “Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself” by Barbara Crooker ✏️ WRITE ▪ Start a poem with this line from Toni Morrison’s Beloved: “Anything dead coming back to life hurts.” ▪ Consider a real or imagined moment in your life where you were startled out of yourself like Crooker. Create a small portrait-as-poem out of this scene. ▪ Take on the voice of a trained sociologist. Write a poem in the style of an observational report about how people behave during spring. EMILY ANDERSON (she/they) is corn born and holds an MA in English from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. They currently teach writing to college students; emcee a surprising number of events for an introvert; and started the Blue Line Basketball League. (fb)