Speakers

Speaker:  Ted Genoways, Author of “This Blessed Earth”

Presentation Summary:  Last week, Ted Genoways made news across Nebraska when the Governor announced he would not honor Genoways’ award-winning book with the traditional proclamation announcements.   As a result, in less than a week the book sold-out from every book store and online venue in Nebraska.  The New York Times Book Review called, This Blessed Earth,  "a clear-eyed and unsentimental look at how farming has become relentlessly optimized by automation, markets, and politics; factors that don’t always take into account the guy who’s actually driving the tractor."    Genoways grew up in Nebraska and has national acclaim as an author, poet, and advocate for social justice issues.    Genoways will provide a non-political discussion about his book, his research, and his recent publicity.

Ted Genoways is the winner of the 2018 James Beard Foundation Award for Investigative Journalism. He is the author of five books, including This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm, this year's One Book One Nebraska and All Iowa Reads selection and winner of the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Award, and The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food, a finalist for the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award for Writing and Literature. His other honors include a National Press Club Award, an Association of Food Journalists Award, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation. He is a contributing editor at Mother Jones, The New Republic, and Pacific Standard. He lives in Lincoln with the photographer Mary Anne Andrei and their teenage son.