It’s is Big and it is Blue and it is full of wonderful words spanning twenty years of Fine Lines journals. You can order this amazing collection by clicking on the image below. Thank you to everyone who made this collection possible!

Sleepless in Omaha: The Poetic Insomnia

David Prinz Hufford

I was sleepless one night in Omaha, but that was weeks ago. I also spent a week one night in Omaha, but I lived there many years. Unless you are a writer, you may not understand these time shifts.

Often it happens, but not often enough; the tireless incubus which drives the poet comes out, many times at night, and will not let him sleep. Some do not believe in inspiration; perhaps, they have never been inspired. But I have, and sometimes, it is a longing anguish, not just to say what needs to be said, but to say what cannot be said.

I have had the opportunity at writers’ conferences, workshops, and retreats to observe others with this malady: the creature which comes out at night and will not let you sleep. I understand that de Maupassant had it, to the point of insomnia. This creature wants out and can have life only in inspiration or invention. Normal people may have it, but they go back to sleep. The inventor of the vacuum sweeper had it, so he got out of bed and drew the first design of what is now your modern convenience.

It is winter, and the creature in me needs the warmth of human association, from the waking souls who will not sleep, but who arise from a warm bed to let the emotional dog out, to what Camus called the “invincible summer,” and the excited creature acts like hope, acts like perpetual morning, and acts like love.

Board of Directors and Special Editors:

The UNO flag will be lowered to half-staff today, Jan. 18, in honor of UNO faculty member Evangelina “Gigi” Brignoni. She taught in the Education Dept. and passed away Jan. 14 at age 57.

Gigi was a Fine Lines Special Editor for two years and helped run the Oxbow Writing Project in the summer on the UNO campus. We will miss her.

David

A memorial service for Gigi is scheduled for Wednesday evening at 6:00 p.m. at Heafey-Heafey-Hoffman Dworak & Cutler Mortuary on 7805 West Center Road. Visitation will be from 3:00-6:00 p.m. The family has suggested memorials to the American Cancer Society.

Please feel free to leave comments here. Share a memory or your well wishes for her family and friends.

Omaha woman nearly dies and pens book on her recovery from aneurysm

by Kirk Zebolsky, Omaha Literature Examiner

December 24, 2011

“Most people die,” said an Omaha woman, a first-time author, referring to her ruptured aneurysm and her chances of survival.

A “very low percentage” of people with such a rupture survive, she said in an interview.

“The majority of people who suffer a ruptured brain aneurysm don’t make it to the hospital … my recovery was really a miracle.”

She is Kim Justus, who published her book “In a Flash” in December and has been publicizing the book. It is praised by a best-selling author and by a retired Omaha World-Herald senior editor.

Justus worked for 25 years in financial services, a field that matched her college degree. But now she is a self-published author who credits the Fine Lines Writers Group and several people in particular whose editing helped her achieve a final draft.

Continue reading “In a Flash: Book Review (Reprinted from examiner.com)”

The following excerpt is from an interview by Sjon Ashby a doctoral student at Capella University. You can read more in the current 2011 Summer edition of Fine Lines. David tells the story of a high school speech teacher who changed his life.

Mrs. Ahern
by David Martin

My sophomore year in high school I had to take a speech class, and the “meanest” teacher I ever had in my life was this little Italian woman who taught that class. She was 4’ 10”. Mrs. Ahern looked up to everybody and almost hurt her neck to look up at some of the athletes in school. She never smiled. That day, when she asked me to give my first speech, I will never forget. I stuttered so badly. When I finished, I was wringing wet with sweat. Half way through my first attempt, I just shut down and I said to myself, “Screw this,” and I went back and sat down in my seat.

She slowly walked down the aisle to me, and she leaned over my shoulder and whispered into my ear, so only I could hear, “David, I know your mother.” She turned around and walked to the other side of the room and took about ten deep breaths. The class was silent, and she said, “Well, well, well. David you really do like sports, and I’m sure you’re a big believer that practice helps the team.” She wouldn’t get away from that idea, until I said loudly enough so the whole room could hear, “Yes, that’s right.”

Then, she pointed at me with her index finger from across the room and pulled me up again to the front. She said, “We’re going to do that speech one more time.”

“What? I gave it once; that’s all I’m doing. It was terrible. I suck,” I said, forcefully.

“Well, a lot of people have found this class challenging, but you just don’t look like the kind of student who would quit out there on the football field, if you got tackled behind the line,” she said, softly.

“What?”

She said, “That’s a metaphor.”

I almost swore, but I knew that she would tell my mother. She got me up there to give my speech again, and I was only half as soaked with sweat as the first time when I finished. My talk was still horrible, but I completed it. The class was quiet. The students knew I was struggling. Nobody applauded. I knew I was not born to be an orator. I hung my head and slowly walked back to my seat.

She started clapping and said, “I mean that as praise, David. That was much better than the first time.”

She spent five minutes walking around the room, talking about God knows what, but she believed in the importance of students being able to say what they meant to an audience, and she walked back to the front of my aisle and pointed that index finger at me, again, then said, “Come up to the front, David, and this time bring that prop that you prepared for your speech. You haven’t even shown it to us, yet.”

I said, “No. I gave it twice. I am finished.”

She looked at me, sternly, and said so everyone could hear, “David, I know your mother.”

Oh, my God. I stood up and walked to the front.

Continue reading “An Interview with David Martin”

June 14th is Flag Day, and in celebration, the Writing Camp participants welcomed Theodore “Don’t Call Me Teddy” Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt, played by Darrel Draper, shared his life’s story with a bully gusto and a bravado indicative of the former three-term president. Campers discovered why February 12th is an unlucky day for him in addition to learning about his connection to American Bison in the Midwest. Did you know he was a cowboy in the Dakotas before leading his Rough Riders up San Juan Hill?