Bloomfield, Susanne George 1947-

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Bloomfield, Susanne George 1947-

(Susanne George Bloomfield, Susanne K. George, Susanne Kathryn George)

PERSONAL: Born March 6, 1947, in Minden, NE; daughter of Thomas C. (a printer) and Imogene (a pharmacist) Flack; married Gary Lindau (a farmer), August 5, 1967 (divorced); married Terry Bloomfield (an operations manager), December 26, 1999; children: (first marriage) Tamara Wagman and Chad Lindan. Education: University of Nebraska at Kearney, B.A. (cum laude), 1968, M.A.Ed., 1979; University of Nebraska—Lincoln, Ph.D., 1988.

ADDRESSES: Home—Holdrege, NE. Office—Department of English, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Thomas Hall, Kearney, NE 68849; fax: 308-865-8411. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Academic and author. Axtell Community Schools, Axtell, NE, teacher, 1968-73; University of Nebraska at Kearney, lecturer, 1979-87, assistant professor, 1988-92, associate professor, 1992-97, professor, 1997—, Martin Distinguished Professor of English, 2005—. Plains Humanities Alliance fellow, 2007-08; Center for Great Plains Studies fellow; director of the Nebraska Book Festival, 1991-92, 2003-04; member of board of governors for the Center for Great Plains Studies; on board of directors for the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation; Nebraska Literature Festival, chair, 1992, cochair, 1995.

MEMBER: Western Literature Association (executive council member, 1994-97; national president, 1996), Society for the Study of American Women Writers, Association for the Study of American Indian Literature, Nebraska Historical Society, Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial Foundation, Nebraska Center for the Book, John G. Neihardt Foundation, Mari Sandoz Heritage Society.

AWARDS, HONORS: Susan Koppleman Award, 1998, for Kate M. Cleary: A Literary Biography with Selected Works; Mari Sandoz Award, Nebraska Library Association, 1998; WILLA Literary Award, for best nonfiction, and Nebraska Book Award, for nonfiction, both 2006, both for Impertinences: Selected Writings of Elia Peat-tie, a Journalist in the Gilded Age; Phi Kappa Phi; Phi Eta Sigma; recipient of numerous teaching awards and grants.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) The Adventures of the Woman Homesteader: The Life and Letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1992.

(Editor, with Allan Jenkins) The Platte River: An Atlas of the Big Bend Region, University of Nebraska at Kearney (Kearney, NE), 1993.

(Editor) Wellsprings: A Collection of Poems from Six Nebraska Poets, English Department, University of Nebraska at Kearney (Kearney, NE), 1995.

Kate M. Cleary: A Literary Biography with Selected Works, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1997.

(Editor, with Steven Rothenberger) A Prairie Mosaic: An Atlas of Central Nebraska’s Land, Nature, and Culture, University of Nebraska at Kearney (Kearney, NE), 2000.

(Editor, with Steven Rothenberger) A Presidential Visit, University of Nebraska at Kearney (Kearney, NE), 2002.

“Absolutely No Manners”: On Having the Audacity to Write Biography, Mari Sandoz Heritage Society and the Center for the Great Plains Studies (Lincoln, NE), 2003.

(With Eric Melvin Reed) From the Beginning: A Century of Excellence at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, University of Nebraska at Kearney (Kearney, NE), 2005.

(Editor and author of biography) Impertinences: Selected Writings of Elia Peattie, a Journalist in the Gilded Age, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2005.

(With Eric Melvin Reed) Adventures in the West: Stories for Young Readers, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2007.

Contributor of poetry and academic articles to Nebraska English Journal, Skiing, Vintage, Great Plains Quarterly, Platte Valley Review, Nebraska History, Heritage of the Great Plains, Nebraska Humanist, Journal of the West, JHistory, Journal of the American West, Nebraska English and Language Arts Journal, Western American Literature, Annals of Iowa, Desert Exposure, Kearney Hub, Great Plains Encyclopedia, Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Women Prose Writers, and the 1996 Nebraska Poets Calendar. Editor of the Platte River Review. Manuscript reviewer for University of Nebraska Press, University of Kansas Press, University of Oklahoma Press, Great Plains Quarterly, Western American Literature, and Nebraska English Journal.

SIDELIGHTS: Susanne George Bloomfield is an academician and author. After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, she taught English and French at various community schools in Axtell, Nebraska, until 1973. In 1979 Bloomfield completed her master of arts in education degree, also from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. She remained at the university upon graduation, accepting a position as a lecturer. In 1988 she was made an assistant professor after completing her Ph.D. that year from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. Bloomfield received tenure in 1992 with her promotion to associate professor. By 1997 she was made a full professor; the same year she published Kate M. Cleary: A Literary Biography with Selected Works. She was named the Martin Distinguished Professor of English in 2005.

Collaborating with Steven Rothenberger, Bloomfield edited A Prairie Mosaic: An Atlas of Central Nebraska’s Land, Nature, and Culture. The book presents an array of topics on Nebraska, ranging from its geology, flora and fauna, and climate, to its history, economics, and artistry. The collection contains thirty articles and twenty-nine poems, as well as a handful of illustrations. Margaret M. Jobe, writing in Library Journal, described the “multidisciplinary approach” as a “majestic overview.”

In 2005 Bloomsfield edited and wrote the biography for Impertinences: Selected Writings of Elia Peattie, a Journalist in the Gilded Age. A biography on the life of Elia Peattie, the book discusses the life of the Omaha-based journalist and her outspoken style and criticisms of the city, including poverty, racism, and prostitution. James Boylan, reviewing the book in the Columbia Journalism Review, remarked that Bloomfield “has made a readable selection” of the writings of Peattie and “prefaced the collection with an adroit summary.” Impertinences won both the WILLA Literary Award for best nonfiction and the Nebraska Book Award for nonfiction in 2006.

Bloomfield told CA: “Having always been fascinated by history, especially of the Great Plains region, my research into the lives and writings of pioneer women, both rural and urban, was a natural outgrowth of that interest. To me, writing biography connects us to our history and aids in understanding our own lives in modern society, for I have discovered that human nature remains much the same, despite our technological progress. Biographers, who blend intellectual and emotional engagement with their subjects, are storytellers and historians. The challenge for me in literary biography is to create a structure that works best to highlight not only the life of an author, but to include the works and their contexts in a creative way. I do not believe that the literature should be separate from the life. Discovering facts about an author’s life enhances the understanding of his or her works, helping readers to re-experience them with fresh insight. At the same time, studying an author’s works provides perception into the character and personality of the writer. Such biographies help us vicariously experience other lives and times while enriching our own.”