Even for those of us raised there, it's easy to dismiss America's rural spaces as cultural deserts, devoid of the intrigue we afford the cities or the coasts or the exotic landscapes of the imagination. In this session, author Carson Vaughan will present the genesis of his first book, Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream, and his work as a freelance journalist focused on rural culture.

Carson Vaughan is a freelance journalist from central Nebraska with a focus on the Great Plains.
His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker (online), The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Paris Review Daily, Outside, Pacific Standard, VICE, In These Times, and more. Most recently, he was awarded the 2018 John M. Collier Award for Forest History Journalism from the Forest History Society for his Weather Channel feature, “Uprooting FDR’s ‘Great Wall of Trees.’” He was also a recipient of a 2018 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Nebraska Arts Council.

His first book, Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream, was published by Little A in April 2019 and earned a 2020 Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction (Investigative Reporting) from the Nebraska Library Commission.

Co-sponsored with the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library and the Eau Claire Community Foundation’s John and Betsy Kell Family Fund!