Nebraska Authors

Herbert Brownell Jr. was the son of Professor Herbert Brownell of the University of Nebraska, a Nebraska educator and author. After graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1924, Brownell Jr. attended Yale University where he received his law degree. He went on to become an important member of the Republican Party in New York, helping Thomas Dewey to win the the election for Governor of New York in 1942. Brownell Jr. also encouraged General Dwight Eisenhower to run for the presidency. Eisenhower appointed Brownell Jr. as the United States Attorney General in 1953. Brownell was involved in several civil rights cases, including Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. Herbert Brownell Jr. also drafted the proposal that became the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Brownell Jr. continued to serve his country as United States Representative to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the mid-1970s. Brownell authored a book about his experiences working in the Eisenhower Administration with Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Brownell.

Read More

Dawes, a Republican, served under three GOP Presidents: He was campaign chairman and comptroller of the currency for William McKinley; Vice President of the United States (1925-1929) under Calvin Coolidge; and Ambassador to England under Herbert Hoover. Charles Dawes was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his 1925 "Dawes Plan" addressing the crisis arising from the German reparations settlement after WW I.

Dawes was the son of Civil War General Rufus Dawes and Mary Gates Dawes. Dawes' uncle was James Dawes, Nebraska's governor from 1883-1887. Charles Dawes began his career as a very successful Nebraska businessman, by the turn of the 20th century, following the Depression of 1893, he was a millionaire. Dawes found close friends in William Jennings Bryan and General John J. Pershing. Another associate was Lincoln banker George W. Holmes

Dawes Middle School in Lincoln, NE is named after him.

dsc

Read More

Matt Mason has organized poetry programming with the State Department in Nepal, Romania, Botswana, and Belarus. He has over two hundred publications with numerous honors including a 2013 Pushcart Prize for his poem “Notes For My Daughter Against Chasing Storms.”

Mason has been appointed Nebraska State Poet, 2019-2023, (succeeding Twyla Hansen).

Mason is well known as an advocate for poetry. He serves as executive director of the Nebraska Writers Collective, through which he promotes the Louder Than a Bomb: Great Plains Youth Poetry Festival (since 2011). He has served as board president of the Nebraska Center for the Book and has served as the Nebraska State Coordinator for Poetry Out Loud, a Poetry Foundation/National Education Association program. Mason founded and administers poetrymenu.com, the Nebraska poetry website, important for literary news and events statewide. He writes that "Galway Kinnell and slam poetry changed my life... I love poetry which entertains as well as it influences and touches..."

Mason's 2018 poem "The Start" was published by the New York Times in 2021, in response to violence that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

Mason is the spouse of poet Sarah McKinstry-Brown.

Read More