The eighth annual Wine, Writers & Song Festival celebrates literature, wine, music and food in historic Brownville.  
Festivities will be held beginning Friday, April 23 at The River Inn, a floating Bed & Breakfast, featuring music by The Ember Schrag Trio, a pasta dinner, poetry by Jinmei Yuan and the Omaha Healing Arts Poetry Slam Team. Audience members are encouraged to participate in the Open Mic reading held later in the evening.
Paul Johnsgard, world renowned ornithologist, will be featured in Saturday’s Non-Fiction Program, along with Jeff Barnes, author of Forts of the Northern Plains. In the afternoon, there will be a Songwriters’ Roundtable with Robin Harrell, Todd Brown and Emily Barnes. The recently opened Antiquarium Bookstore will host The Art of Fiction program, featuring Beef Torrey and Kevin Simonsen, authors of Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson and Amy Knox Brown, author of Three Versions of the Truth.  
There is a children’s program, held at the Brownville Concert Hall, with musician Mike Mennard, storyteller Linda Garcia and author NL Sharp. A riverboat ride is scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Tickets for the riverboat ride cost $9.95 each (children 5 and under, free) and can be purchased at the dock before departure.  
One of the highlights of the festival is the Pairing Food & Wine program, which features Maggie Pleskac and Sean Carmichael, authors of Dueling Chefs: A Vegetarian & A Meat Lover Debate the Plate, who will pair their appetizers with wines from Whiskey Run Creek Winery. The audience will sample the appetizers and wines and discuss complementary flavors. Barbara Bond of The Cooking School of Brownville will host and Ron Heskett, vintner at Whiskey Run Creek Winery, will take participants on tours of the historic wine cave. (There is an $8 charge for this program. Reservations may be made online at  “http://www.brownville-ne.com/”
Jumpin’ Kate will play at Whiskey Run Creek Winery for the Saturday Evening Revelry.
On Sunday morning, there is a Weekend Writers’ Workshop Open House and everyone is invited to join members of the River of Words workshop for coffee, rolls and a reading.  Later that morning, there are programs on Book Collecting and Book Making & History. The afternoon features Free Range Readings by a variety of poets and authors including JV Brummels, Greg Kosmicki, Karen Shoemaker, Roy Scheele, Twyla Hansen and many others.
The Wine, Writers & Song Festival is fun for the entire family. Almost all programming is free of charge. For a complete schedule of festival programming, please visit: “http://www.brownville-ne.com/. For other questions, please contact Festival Director, Cinnamon Dokken at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (402) 770-1677.   
This event is sponsored by Nebraska Humanities Council, Nebraska Arts Council, A Novel Idea Bookstore, Prairie Sage Publishing and Infusionmedia Publishing with support from the Brownville Fine Arts Association, Merchants of Brownville, The Lyceum Cafe, Whiskey Run Creek Winery, The Lyceum Bookstore, The Antiquarium Bookstore, The Village Bookstore and The River Inn Floating Bed and Breakfast.