The Linden Review, in partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha English Department and Creative Nonfiction Program and Glacier Creek Preserve, is proud to announce the details of this year’s Bouteloua LitArt Fest, a celebration of local authors and artists.

The event will be held at Glacier Creek Preserve in Bennington from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 4, 2026. The event is free to attend and open to the public, and complimentary food and drink will be provided.

Visitors can take in the rolling hills and the countryside scenery at the 525-acre preserve, part of University of Nebraska at Omaha's extended campus. The location features several trails, some of which wind through the 140-acre Allwine Prairie Tract, a restored tallgrass prairie created in 1970.

The event will kick off at 2:00 p.m. with a panel of local authors: Todd Robinson, Caitlin Cass, Tammie Kennedy, and Terri Dreismeier. Ellen Forney’s talk is scheduled to begin at 4:30.

Ellen Forney is an award-winning author, artist, and mental health advocate. Her work includes the New York Times bestselling graphic memoir, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me,  Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life, and The Adventures of You: How to Write and Star in your Own Comics, as well as illustrating The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, which earned a National Book Award. She also curated “Graphic Medicine: Ill-Conceived & Well-Drawn,” a traveling exhibition on comics and health, for the National Library of Medicine. Her work has earned numerous recognitions, including Best Graphic Medicine Publication by JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), and has been published and/or reviewed in Washington Post, New York Times, Psychology Today, NPR, and LA Times. She lives in Seattle. 

Todd Robinson is an Associate Professor in the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Robinson is the author of Mass for Shut-Ins (Backwaters Press, 2018) and Note at Heart Rock (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2012). His writing has appeared in such venues as The Adroit Journal, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, Prairie Schooner, Sugar House Review, Cortland Review, and A Dozen Nothing. Recipient of the 2024 Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award and Nebraska State Poet finalist, he has conducted writing workshops with The Seven Doctors Project, The Naturalist School, Nebraska Warrior Writers, Nebraska Writers Collective, and the CÚRAM center for research in medical devices.

Caitlin Cass is an artist and cartoonist making work about failing systems and irrational hope. Her graphic history Suffrage Song: The Haunted History of Gender, Race, and Voting Rights in the U.S. won an Eisner for best reality-based work.  Suffrage Song was published this summer in French with Delcourt Books and an updated English edition with new content comes out with Fantagraphics Books next spring. Caitlin's work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Lily, and The Nib and has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is currently working on a graphic history/memoir about medical sexism and finding meaning in the face of global disaster. She is Associate Professor of Studio Art in Illustration at the University of Nebraska Omaha.

Tammie Kennedy is a Professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in rhetoric, film, feminist rhetorics, memory studies, creative nonfiction, and writing theory and pedagogy. She has published in a variety of scholarly journals, including Composition Studies; Feminist Formations; Rhetoric Review; Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture; JAC: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies of Rhetoric, Culture, and Politics; English Studies; and Journal of Lesbian Studies and contributed chapters to books, such as Food, Feminisms, and Rhetorics; Pedagogies of Public Memory: Museums, Memorials, and Archives as Sites for Teaching Writing; and Creative Composition: Inspiration and Techniques for Writing Instruction. In 2018, she was awarded the Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award, Nebraska University System’s highest teaching award. She co-edited Rhetorics of Whiteness: Postracial Hauntings in Popular Culture, Social Media, and Education, which was named 2018 Best Co-Edited Book by the Conference on College Composition and Communication. She also co-edited the 2024 Peitho special issue on small and subtle feminisms with Jessi Thomsen. She is currently working on two books: Fractal Rhetorics: Scaling Small and Subtle Feminist Rhetorical Actions and Walking Rhetorics: An Ethnographic Study of Hiking, Pilgrimage, and Everyday Public Life. Much of her scholarly and creative work focuses on feminist rhetorics, rhetorics of remembering practices, and how the embodied qualities of memory shape identity, writing, knowledge production, and transformation.

Terri Dreismeier (she/her/hers) lost her son Adam at the age of 22 to suicide. Like many transracial adoptees, Adam (Jang, SuHo) was struggling with identity, acceptance, and belonging—themes that inspire Terri’s work. Her work has appeared in Fine Lines, the anthology Adoption and Suicidality, and in Centering for Grief and Digest Magazine. Terri has spoken at KAMP (Korean Adoptee Means Power) and was a featured guest with Claiming Your Voice podcast with Janeice Garrard, EdD. She also was a guest panelist with the Center for Adoption Support and Education with the National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services, and has presented at the Metro Area Suicide Prevention Coalition-The Kim Foundation. Having recently earned the Advanced Writing Certificate,  she is currently pursuing her MA at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.