Two sisters seek freedom from slavery in the Nebraska Territory

On a frigid, late-November night in 1858, Celia and Eliza Grayson, ages 22 and 20, quietly slipped out of their home in the frontier river town of Nebraska City. Just one rustle of clothing or a creaky floorboard would have meant capture and severe punishment, or worse. They met up with John Williamson, a Black and Cherokee man who had offered to help them escape from Stephen F. Nuckolls, who’d kept them as slaves since they were children.

In her new book, Journey to Freedom: Uncovering the Grayson Sisters’ Escape from Nebraska Territory, author Gail Shaffer Blankenau tells the story of the sisters’ harrowing journey across the icy Missouri River into Iowa, and eventually to the perceived safety of Chicago.

It’s a story filled with sadness, despair and risk. But it’s also about those who fought for justice – brave abolitionists who hid fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad, putting their lives on the line to help others be free. Their story made headlines across the nation at a time when the country was wrestling with the slavery debate– thrusting the Nebraska Territory into the spotlight in the lead-up to the Civil War.

“The more I researched, the more I realized [Celia and Eliza’s] part in the troubled history of enslavement in Nebraska Territory was much larger than previously supposed,” wrote Blankenau, a Lincoln resident who is a professional genealogist, historian and speaker. She dove into primary sources to write Journey to Freedom.

Those extensive sources led Blankenau to write a story that’s not just about the sisters, but one that dives into the slavery/abolition debate– both in the Nebraska Territory and on a national level.

“Was Nebraska Territory slave or free? Could enslavement exist in a Northern climate? Was popular sovereignty working in Nebraska?” Blankenau wrote.“Celia and Eliza’s flight to freedom accentuated these questions and affected the political debate over the future of slavery as well as the future of the country.”

Nebraska Book Award winner pays tribute to beloved poet

In the 1960s, a young Ted Kooser faced a dilemma. His tiny Lincoln apartment offered little room for inspiration. As a graduate student at the University of Nebraska juggling coursework and an insurance job to pay the bills, he needed a dedicated space to write.

One day, Kooser found a refrigerator box in an alley, hauled it back to his apartment and transformed it into a makeshift office. In this humble cardboard sanctuary, he crafted poetry in the early morning hours before heading to work.

It was an unassuming start for a man whose words would one day capture the heart of America and earn him a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

In Ted Kooser: More Than a Local Wonder, author Carla Ketner’s writing feels like poetry itself. This heartwarming tribute celebrates the quiet persistence of a writer who found his voice through storytelling. Ketner’s book, which won the 2024 Nebraska Book Award and the Midwest Book Award for Children’s Nonfiction, is both whimsical and poignant.

Through lyrical prose and watercolor illustrations by Omaha artist Paula Wallace, Ketner tells the story of Kooser’s upbringing. As a wiry, unathletic boy growing up in Iowa, Kooser often felt out of place. Yet his family’s love for the written and spoken word nurtured his curiosity and fueled his dream of becoming a poet.

“You never can tell what will happen when a curious little boy finds stories in the people who surround him and learns to write poems,” Ketner reflects. “When he fills the empty spaces in his soul with his own words and finds ... himself.”

Ketner first met Kooser at the Cattle Bank in Seward, where he was signing copies of Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps, a beloved collection of stories about Nebraska. A year later, Kooser attended the grand opening of Ketner’s bookstore in 2004, where his books sold out instantly.

The vast skies, shimmering horizons and sweeping prairies of rural Nebraska have always shaped Kooser’s storytelling. Now retired to an acreage west of Lincoln, he still rises before dawn to write in a real office and takes long walks through the countryside, soaking in the landscapes that inspire his work.

Waltz along a road trip of historic ballrooms

Just “ah-one, ah-two” things (thank you, Lawrence Welk) are required to hold a big community dance: people and music. As for where the people would dance to that music, it never really mattered, if there was room to move.

In his new book, Nebraska Ballrooms and Dance Halls, author Austin Truex helps dance aficionados and Nebraska history buffs waltz, sashay, jitterbug, swing and lindy hop through this fascinating history of dance venues around Nebraska. 

Some places are long gone, lost to flood, fire or demolition. Others are still standing in all their glory, like the Hotel Norfolk in downtown Norfolk – now known as the Kensington Building – where a club dance in 1933 was advertised as being “cooled with magic weather.” At the time, this referred to air conditioning, which was not yet common in public buildings. 

There’s also the Skylon Ballroom in Hartington, which has doubled as a skating rink; the huge building has been moved around a bit, including in late 2024, but still retains its distinctive curved roof. And, of course, the Joslyn Castle in Omaha, a 1903 mansion huge enough to have its own dedicated ballroom for fancy events hosted by then-owners George and Sarah Joslyn.

Truex couldn’t possibly include all the hundreds of venues in use when ballroom dancing and big band music were at the height of their popularity in the mid-1900s. These included not just stand-alone dance halls and ballrooms – with their high ceilings, extravagant lighting and grand windows – but also open-air park pavilions, opera houses, grand homes, barns, school gyms, theaters, community centers, country clubs and closed-off streets.

So, Truex traveled around Nebraska to decide which ballrooms were the most interesting places to include in his book, then divided them into five regions, making Nebraska Ballrooms ideal for a danceophile’s road trip.

The book includes descriptions and historic photos of dozens of places where people could dress up in all their finery and bop along to the “wunnerful, wunnerful” musical stylings of Welk and other big names like Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and Guy Lombardo. Amazingly, some of the venues still hold dance-related events to this day.

“Dance halls and ballrooms are scattered across the state, from the largest metropolitan centers to the smallest unincorporated communities,” Truex wrote. “For as long as there have been Nebraskans, there have been Nebraskans looking for somewhere to dance.”

Former state senator bares all in memoir

Theater lights blared down on Colby Coash, a senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In front of hundreds, he dashed across the stage – naked except for dirty, white athletic socks. His brief but unforgettable scene as Hustler in the play Six Degrees of Separation lasted less than a minute. Yet his raw, profane rage directed at the play’s main character delivered an audacious and shocking performance.

In much the same way he bared his body onstage, former State Sen. Coash bares his soul in Running Naked: Surviving the Legacy of Family in Rural Nebraska, exposing the emotional turmoil of a man caught between the weight of his rural roots and the restless ambition that led him to leave. His memoir is as much a tribute to the people and place that shaped him as it is a story of personal reinvention.

Coash grew up in Bassett, a Rock County town of 1,010 people. His father owned and operated a fertilizer plant that was integral to the community’s economy. For many, following in those footsteps would have been the natural course. “[He] could not escape that legacy any more than the clothes he wore could escape the chemical smell, which permeated them,” Coash reflects, capturing the inescapable grip of his father’s vocation.

His mother, on the other hand, made the painful decision to abandon the family for a life outside Nebraska. When Coash was just 14 years old, she asked him to drive with her to California. “I was caught between both of these worlds, and at some point, I would need to chart my own course, but without guidance from either of them,” he writes.

Bassett was a foundation for Coash’s growth. His writing details hard work, cleaning bins and laboring alongside his father. His dad instilled in him a work ethic and responsibility to serve his community that would serve Coash well in the years ahead. The very drive and determination that Coash felt compelled to leave at the plant eventually became the qualities that propelled him to success.

In 2008, Coash’s “shoe leather” campaigning led him to his first win as state senator for the 27th District in Lincoln. He knocked on doors across his district and even acquired a Razor scooter to reach more people. 

His relentless efforts, shaped by the persistent hard work of his rural upbringing, won him the election by fewer than 100 votes.  He served as state senator from 2009 to 2017, where he became a vocal advocate for child welfare and people with developmental disabilities.

In Running Naked, Coash takes readers through the heart-wrenching decisions that led him to leave home in pursuit of other dreams. While his memoir describes the difficulties of leaving his hometown, it also underscores the lasting impact that a rural upbringing has on shaping character, values and the drive to succeed.

Coffee table book explores Capitol’s remarkable artworks

Anyone who has stepped inside the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln knows it’s much more than a government building – it’s an art gallery, history museum and architectural masterpiece all rolled into one. Completed in 1932, the 15-story limestone structure houses nearly 150 exquisite artworks, offering visitors a captivating tour of Nebraska’s history – even from before it became a state.

In their new coffee table book, Creative Genius: The Art of the Nebraska Capitol, Susanne Shore, Kevin Moser and Drew Davies showcase breathtaking photographs of the building’s artwork, paired with engaging descriptions of each piece. Davies, founder of Omaha-based boutique design firm Oxide, is joined by professional storyteller Kevin Moser and Susanne Shore, Nebraska’s former first lady and an enthusiastic advocate for the state.

The trio’s collaboration began two years ago with the design of Nebraska’s latest license plate, inspired by “The Genius of Creative Energy,” a series of mosaics in the Capitol. This project sparked an idea: despite the building’s rich artistry, no comprehensive collection of high-quality photographs existed. The result is this remarkable book.

In many state capitol buildings, artwork can seem like an afterthought. Not so in Nebraska’s Capitol. From the beginning, its artwork was a deliberate part of the design. The Capitol features grand murals, vibrant mosaics, ceramic tiles, intricately carved marble columns, paintings, sculptures and detailed limestone reliefs on its exterior. Each piece tells a story, like the shimmering Venetian glass mosaic in the foyer that depicts teacher Minnie Freeman, who courageously led her 13 students to safety during the 1888 blizzard by tethering them together as they battled through the storm.

While the book’s stunning photographs bring the Capitol’s artistry to life, seeing it in person is unparalleled. If you visit, take Creative Genius as your guide. If a trip isn’t possible, the book offers an inspiring armchair journey through what is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful capitol buildings in the nation.

“Together, [the artworks] transform the building from the seat of government to an inspirational monument,” wrote former Capitol administrator Robert C. Ripley in the book’s foreword. “Years of sharing the Capitol with national and international visitors and architects have only reinforced what I knew as a child: Nebraska’s Capitol is remarkable.”

Local author wins 2025 One Book One Nebraska for heartbreaking historical fiction

Nebraska author Tosca Lee’s historical fiction novel The Long March Home may take place across the country in Alabama – and across the globe in the Philippines. However, important discussions about an obscure chapter of World War II history are happening right here in Nebraska due to the book’s selection for 2025 One Book One Nebraska.

The reading program is sponsored by Lincoln’s Nebraska Center for the Book and Nebraska Library Commission, which select one book by a homegrown author or with a Nebraska focus each year for book clubs and libraries to unite around. The Long March Home, co-authored by Tosca Lee and Marcus Brotherton, was selected for 2025.

Lee is a New York Times bestselling author of 12 books. She grew up in Lincoln after moving there in 1976. Her third-great grandmother was an early homesteader, and her mother was a native Nebraskan. Lee feels a strong familial connection to the state and now lives on a farm south of Fremont with her husband.

“Nebraska has such a rich history of writers. I’ve always been proud to be a part of that legacy,” Lee said.

The novel centers around the Bataan Death March, one of the most egregious atrocities in modern warfare. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, three fictional characters, Jimmy, Billy and Hank, survive horrific war crimes as they vow to make it home alive, together.

Though the novel is fiction, everything that occurs in the book – the brutality, warfare and events – is all real. Most of what is taught about World War II is set in the Europe stage. The Long March Home shines a light on a chapter of history most aren’t aware of to engender gratitude for unspoken war heroes in the Pacific.

Despite the novel’s heavy topic, it also highlights incredible resilience, brotherhood and sacrifice in the face of adversity.

“As an author, if I can touch someone enough to make them laugh, get angry or cry, I’ve done my job. This is a story worth crying over,” Lee said.