Twyla Hansen's latest book is ROCK TREE BIRD (The Backwaters Press, 2017). Her book DIRT SONGS: A PLAINS DUET (The Backwaters Press, 2011), written with rancher-writer Linda Hasselstrom, won the 2012 Nebraska Book Award in poetry, and was a finalist for the Willa Literary Award and High Plains Book Award. She has five previous books, including POTATO SOUP (The Backwaters Press, 2003), which won a 2004 Nebraska Book Award. Her writing has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Prairie Fire newspaper, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, Ascent, Natural Bridge, Organization & Environment, Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Poetry (Backwaters Press 2007), Encyclopedia of the Great Plains (University of Nebraska Press, 2004), Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West (Houghton Mifflin, 2004), Poets Against the War (Nation Books, 2003), and A Contemporary Reader for Creative Writing (Harcourt Brace, 1994). Her BS and MA are from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was raised in northeast Nebraska on land her grandparents farmed in the late 1800s as immigrants from Denmark. She is a creative writing presenter through the Nebraska Humanities Council, and lives and works in Lincoln, where her wooded acre is maintained as an urban wildlife habitat, recognized by the 1994 Mayor's Landscape Conservation Award.
Linda M. Hasselstrom is the full-time resident writer at Windbreak House Writing Retreats, established in 1996 on her ranch. In addition she is a speaker for Road Scholar educational travel, and has served as an online mentor for the University of Minnesota's Split Rock writing program. She's also an advisor to Texas Tech University Press. Hasselstrom's writing has appeared in dozens of anthologies and magazines; a poetry collection, Bitter Creek Junction won the Wrangler for Best Poetry Book, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK. Bison: Monarch of the Plains was named best environmental and nature book of 1999 by the Independent Publishers Association.
