FOR MORE INFORMATION: Bailee Juroshek 402-471-4002 800-307-2665
Nominations Open for the 2026 Nebraska Book Awards
The 2026 Nebraska Book Awards program, sponsored by the Nebraska Center for the Book (NCB) and Nebraska Library Commission, will recognize and honor books that are written by Nebraska authors and illustrators, published by Nebraska publishers, set in Nebraska, or relate to Nebraska.
Books published in 2025, as indicated by the copyright date, are eligible for nomination. They must be professionally published, have an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), and be bound. Books may be entered in one or more of the following categories: Nonfiction, Fiction, Children/Young Adult, Cover/Design/Illustration, and Poetry. Winners in each category will be honored at the Fall 2026 Nebraska Celebration of Book Literary Festival in Lincoln on October 24th.
Books may be entered in one of two ways, either complete the Online Entry Form and submit payment through PayPal, then mail three copies of the book to the below address. Or, mail the Entry Form [pdf], three copies of the book, and the entry fee via a check made out to the Nebraska Center for the Book to the below address.
NCB Book Awards Competition c/o Nebraska Library Commission The Atrium 1200 N Street, Suite 120 Lincoln, NE 68508-2023
The Nebraska Center for the Book is housed at the Nebraska Library Commission and brings together the state’s readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, publishers, printers, educators, and scholars to build the community of the book, supporting programs to celebrate and stimulate public interest in books, reading, and the written word. The Nebraska Center for the Book is supported by the national Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and the Nebraska Library Commission.
As the state library agency, the Nebraska Library Commission is an advocate for the library and information needs of all Nebraskans. The mission of the Library Commission is statewide promotion, development, and coordination of library and information services, “bringing together people and information.”
A poem by Nebraska state poet Matt Mason about political violence found a broad national audience after being published by the New York Times on Sunday — even though it was written three years ago.
At the time he wrote it, Mason said the political climate made him feel uncomfortable because of its aggressive nature. But he filed the poem away until a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol last week and the poem became more relevant.
“The Start” is about how seemingly small speeches or actions that are fueled by hatred will lead to aggressive behavior, such as riots. Mason repeats the phrase “it probably started” throughout his poem to convey that message.
“It’s seemed like we were going more and more with the (hateful) language and never hitting the point of saying, ‘This is too far,’” he said. “And if that point never gets hit, the violence is inevitable.”
Mason sent the poem to a contact at the New York Times and now it’s been seen thousands of times on the newspaper’s website, according to Mason.
“If I sell 10,000 copies of a book, I’ve done really well,” he said. “They told me mid-afternoon that the link to my poem had been clicked on something, like, 20,000 times. It’s like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’”
He hopes his poem will change people’s minds about the current political climate, referencing people who have excused the actions of those who stormed the Capitol.
“I think we need people to not just recognize how far things have gone, but change their minds about what they thought about it previously,” he said.
Mason has been the state poet for two years. In his role, he advocates for local poets and has tried to host a poetry event in each Nebraska county. He also works at the Nebraska Writers Collective and has published three books.
There is mystery here, in the shapes of grass, in the dim movements of an inland sea, connections to an earlier time. Wander barefoot, hypothesize the dance of millennia, the unbearable carvings of the built environment, this ragtag escape.
Let its divine simplicity ooze into your pores. Comb the steel from your hair, blanket your tongue with orange. Your breathing will slow. Breathing slow, unbutton the child within. Give her permission to fly like a kite.
From Prairie Suite: A Celebration, Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, 2006.
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As part of #NationalPoetryMonth, we’re highlighting some of our favorite poems by Nebraska authors. If you have a favorite, feel free to send it to us!
Hard to know which is more gnarled, the posts he hammers staples into or the blue hummocks which run across his hands like molehills.
Work has reduced his wrists to bones, cut out of him the easy flesh and brought him down to this, the crowbar’s teeth
caught just behind a barb. Again this morning the crowbar’s neck will make its blue slip into wood,
there will be that moment when too much strength will cause the wire to break. But even at 70, he says,
he has to have it right, and more than right. This morning, in the pewter light, he has the scars to prove it.
From Gutter Flowers, Logan House, 2005.
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As part of #NationalPoetryMonth, we’re highlighting some of our favorite poems by Nebraska authors. If you have a favorite, feel free to send it to us!
The porchlight coming on again,
Early November, the dead leaves
Raked in piles, the wicker swing
Creaking. Across the lots
A phonograph is playing Ja-Da.
An orange moon. I see the lives
Of neighbors, mapped and marred
Like all the wars ahead, and R.
Insane, B. with his throat cut,
Fifteen years from now, in Omaha.
I did not know them then.
My airedale scratches at the door.
And I am back from seeing Milton Stills
And Doris Kenyon. Twelve years old.
The porchlight coming on again.
From The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees, University of Nebraska Press, 1962.
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As part of #NationalPoetryMonth, we’re highlighting some of our favorite poems by Nebraska authors. If you have a favorite, feel free to send it to us!
