Join the Willa Cather Foundation for an evening of readings and lively discussion with four Nebraska writers! Lydia Kang, Theodore Wheeler, James Cihlar, and Saddiq Dzukogi will be on hand share excerpts from their most recent publications, as well as engage in a discussion with viewers about what it means to be contemporary Nebraska authors. Willa Cather Foundation Education Coordinator Rachel Olsen will moderate a live Q&A following the discussion.

Lydia Kang is a physician and author of The November Girl, a 2018 winner of the Nebraska Book Award, and Quackery, a Best Science Book of 2017 by NPR's Science Friday. Her most recent historical novel, Opium and Absinthe, has been a best seller since its release in July 2020.

Theodore Wheeler is the author of the novels In Our Other Lives and Kings of Broken Things, and Bad Faith, a collection of short fiction. He has been recognized with a fellowship from Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany and, most recently, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Wheeler covers a civil-law beat for a national news service and co-directs Omaha Lit Fest. 

James Cihlar is the author of the poetry books The Shadowgraph, Rancho Nostalgia, and Undoing. He earned his MA and PhD at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and his BA at the University of Iowa. A Nebraska native, he now teaches at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

Saddiq Dzukogi holds a degree in mass communication from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (Nigeria), and is pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the author of Inside the Flower Room, part of the New Generation African Poets Chapbook series. His debut collection, Your Crib, My Qibla, will be published by University of Nebraska Press in March 2021.