Our Board
Charlene Pierce
President
Charlene founded the Nebraska Poetry Society, a non-profit organization, to make poetry accessible to all. It is an essential mission to her as one with a disability who overcame poverty. Her poetry and prose have appeared in the Nebraska anthologies "Misbehaving Nebraskans," "How it Looks from Here," and "Voices of the Plains." Her poetry appeared in The Good Life Review, Page and Spine, BlazeVOX, and Literary Yard. She is a Copyeditor for the Raleigh Review and published "The Poet's Journal: A Beginner's Workbook for Writing Poetry." By day, she is a freelance writer appearing on websites and blogs across the country and local magazines.
Brandy Prettyman
Vice President
Brandy is the author of "Forbidden Fruit: Poems of Love, Loss, Hope, and Regret". A professional jack-of-all-trades, she earned a Bachelor in Business Administration and has spent the last decade (maybe it’s longer, but let’s not make this awkward) writing poetry that explores the dark emotions we face when confronted by our own morality and mortality. Brandy lives in Papillion, Nebraska, and like to spend her spare time traveling the world with her trusty four-legged sidekick Mary Puppins. Most days she can be found drinking a large latte at her desk, frantically writing her thoughts down in verse before they disappear.
Julie Haase
Treasurer
Julie is a freelance editor and writer and the Business and Publishing Manager for The Writer’s Ally, an editing and self-publishing services company. Julie has published in various Nebraska anthologies and The First Line as well as self-published a guide for narrative writers called Tips & Tricks for Great (Narrative) Writing. Julie is also the Publications Chair for the Nebraska Writers Guild. She lives in Omaha and is a proud cat mama.
Amy Haddad
Secretary
Amy Haddad is a poet, nurse and educator who taught in the health sciences at Creighton University where she is now a Professor Emerita. Her poetry and short stories have been published in Janus Head, Journal of Medical Humanities, Touch, Bellevue Literary Review, Pulse, Persimmon Tree, Annals of Internal Medicine, Aji Magazine, DASH, Oberon Poetry Magazine, and Rogue Agent. Her chapbook, The Geography of Kitchens, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. Her poetry collection, An Otherwise Healthy Woman, was published by Backwaters Press, in March, 2022. The collection won first place in the Creative Works category of the American Journal of Nursing 2022 Books of the Year Awards.
Cat Dixon
Marketing Chair
Cat Dixon is the author of "What Happens in Nebraska," "Eva," and "Too Heavy to Carry" (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2022, 2016, 2014), and the chapbooks "The Book of Levinson" and "Our End Has Brought the Spring" (Finishing Line Press, 2017, 2015), and "Table for Two" (Poet's Haven, 2019).
Her newest chapbook, "Dispatches from the Unfillable Sinkhole," was released from Alien Buddha Press last summer. Cat is a poetry editor with The Good Life Review and an adjunct instructor at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.
Nathan Lachner
Performance Poetry Chair
@TracesofaHeadspace
Nathan is a poet and essayist who has been writing in one form or another for thirteen years. Evolving from the ideas of beauty in language, poetry as confession of self, and a desire to do the words good, his work tends toward the bittersweet, seeking always to find hope and wisdom inside of pain and joy alike. Also an aspiring voice actor, Nathan delights in the auditory roots of language and endeavors to bring that passion to his performances.
Julie S. Paschold
Convention & Retreat Chair
Julie (Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle) is a queer disabled poet and artist from Nebraska. They have their BS and MS in agronomy from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Their first book, Horizons (Atmosphere Press), is a collection of poetry honoring soil, one of our nonrenewable resources. Julie has been published in AKA’s Advocate, Fine Lines, Plainsongs, The Awakenings Review, the Nebraska Writer’s Guild, The Raven’s Perch, Iconoclast, The Radical Teacher, and several publications on medium.com. Two of their chapbooks won honorable mention in contests by Writer's Digest in 2021 and 2022. Julie sells their sketches at Ravenwood in Norfolk, NE. Find more on her blog.
Our Committees
Michael Meissner
Performance Poetry Committee
@Axiosyncracy
Michael, lesser known by the pen name Axiosyncracy, is a Nebraskan poet, a faithful participant in Omaha open mics, and a patron of local arts. In addition to poetry, he dabbles in creative fiction writing and promises his therapist to journal more. Though it be but little, Michael's corpus displays his focus on depth and intimacy of meaning over volume.
Hannah Johnson
Performance Poetry Committee
@han.nah.j23
Hannah is a Lincoln native who found her love of poetry through the high school slam program in 2015 and represented her school through graduation in 2019.
She represented Nebraska at the BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam Competition in 2023, placing 18th in the country.
She is now a college senior at UNL, graduating in May with a degree in Psychology and a focus in Music. Looking forward, she will compete for Miss Nebraska in June 2024.