Nebraska poet and two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser will speak next Sunday, Oct. 14, at 1:00 p.m. at Sokol South Omaha (21st and U Streets). Kooser won’t be reading poetry, though. He’ll be reading from and discussing his memoir Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (UNP, 2002).

According to Newsday writer Dan Cryer, Local Wonders includes “eloquent meditations on country pleasures, the rhythms of the seasons and the lingering presence of Czech folk culture in rural Nebraska." In the book, Kooser’s first collection of prose, he describes with exquisite detail and humor the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska—an area also known as the Bohemian Alps—that he calls home.

The event is sponsored by and benefits the Omaha Czech Cultural Club. Admission is $4 for adults and free for children 12 and younger.

Local Wonders won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003 and was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection in 2002. The book also won the Gold Award for Autobiography in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards.

If you want to learn more about Kooser or would like to read a sampling of his poetry, check out his website www.tedkooser.com/. Other books of his published by UNP include The Poetry Home Repair Manual, The Blizzard Voices, and Writing Brave and Free.