Leo Adam Biga

A full-time freelance journalist and writer who has been a perceptive observer of the Omaha literary and cultural and sports scene. He has had unusual access to film maker Alexander Payne, and has written much about him. Some of his articles about Nancy Duncan are available on-line. He has undoubtedly interviewed more Nebraska writers than any other journalist, and resulting articles have appeared in The Reader and are often available on-line. He is widely recognized by arts community insiders as one of the nation's best cultural journalists: “Leo Adam Biga is an astute, conscientious journalist whose interviews and articles have been widely admired for their accuracy, generosity, depth, and perceptiveness. I would position him among the finest of our national reporters on the arts and culture.” Ron Hansen, Nebraska novelist

He has published articles in The Black Scholar and in American Visions (no longer in publication), which was published by the African-American Museum Association. He wrote two eBooks for the Omaha Public Schools "Making Invisible Histories Visible" program, focused on African-American experiences in Omaha during and after the Great Migration in the early 20th century. He has written about the Brandeis Department Stores, including a script for a documentary film about the stores.

dsc

Places Lived

Omaha, NE

Author Of

Biography
Journalism
Nonfiction

Keywords

Memoirs; Eclectic Interests; Arts Journalism; Cultural Journalism; Sports Journalism; Film Reviews; Omaha (Nebraska)--History; African-American Culture; Jewish Culture

Education

University of Nebraska, Omaha

Occupation

Freelance writer

Bibliography

Listing books only:

Memories of the Jewish Midwest: Mom and Pop Grocery Stores. 2011.
Open Wide. 2011.
Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film. 2012 and 2016.
Father Ken Vavrina, Crossing Bridges: A Priest's Uplifting Life Among the Downtrodden. 2015. (Biga is listed as assisting author)
The Great Migration: Wherever People Move, Home is Where the Heart is. (eBook published by the Omaha Public Schools "Making Invisible Histories Visible" program. Victoria Hoyt, Illustrator.) 2013. In 2019 the book was available online at http://www.education.ne.gov/nebooks/ebooks/great_migration.pdf

Peony Park. Civil Rights: Standing Up for What's Right to Make a Difference (eBook published by the Omaha Public Schools "Making Invisible Histories Visible" program. Weston Thomson, Illustrator.) 2013. In 2019 the book was available online at http://www.education.ne.gov/nebooks/ebooks/peony_park.pdf

Nebraska Methodist College at 125: Scaling New Heights. (Co-author with Dennis A. Joslyn) 2016.

We appreciate corrections and additions to our information about authors, but please read the following guidelines and caveats carefully.

The Nebraska Authors database is based on publicly available sources. Unless you are the author contacting us in person, it helps us if you cite the source or sources of your information. We cannot include unsourced information in the database.
We may be appreciative of information we choose not to include in the publicly available database.
To include an image on an author profile, please send jpg attachment to nebraskaauthors@lincoln.ne.gov. A photo-release agreement is required before the image will be published on this site.
Because of the way we are staffed, expect corrections or additions to take time, sometimes up to three months.
While we initially included some actual links to external URLs in the database, we will in the future no longer provide functioning links. We will instead record the presence of specific external materials in language that we hope will help intelligent users find it themselves. Web rot, in which actual materials remain online but undergo changes in their URLs, is too demanding in terms of staff time for us to hope to keep external links current.

Please copy, fill out the form below, and email it to heritage@lincoln.ne.gov to suggest a change.