A new NET Radio series “Lost Writers of the Plains” features eight authors who once were poised for fame but are now lost to contemporary readers. All have a Plains connection and almost all have ties to Nebraska.
These are the Lost Writers: an author who had a stroke when she got a bad review; a stark realist censored by an anxious dean; a playwright who had to change his name; a bohemian poet in the middle of Kansas; a lone scholar dedicated to African American literature; a jack-of-all-trades who wound up in jail; a woman who gave up writing for medicine; an Orientalist who fell out of favor.
Beginning March 6 and continuing through April 30, NET Radio will air essays about these authors three times each week during Friday Live from 9-10 a.m., Weekend Edition on Saturdays at 9:35 a.m. and All Things Considered on Sundays at 4:35 p.m. All times are CT.
A companion website, netNebraska.org/lostwriters, and a free iBook from iTunes offers photographs, documents and video commentary from contemporary writers such as former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser, Prairie Schooner editor Kwame Dawes and novelist Timothy Schaffert. Critical and historical interpretations of their works and why their careers or Plains connections have been forgotten are also included.
In order of appearance, the featured writers are: LaSelle Gilman, Margaret Haughawout, Dorothy Thomas, Bertram Austin Lewis, W. Zolley Lerner, Earl Guy, Faye Cashatt Lewis and Ervin Krause.
“Lost Writers of the Plains” is a collaboration between NET Radio, the Center for Great Plains Studies and Prairie Schooner.
Funding for this series was provided in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, NET Foundation for Television, Cooper Foundation, Woods Charitable Fund, the Baer Foundation and Loretta Krause.
NET Radio is Nebraska’s NPR station and is a service of NET. For more information about NET Radio or to listen to NET Radio programming, visit http://www.netnebraska.org/.
