This annual program at the Center for Great Plains Studies invites students to apply to be our Student Storyteller in Residence. Over the course of the year, the storyteller will produce a visual and/or written project that helps tell the story of the region by working with Center mentors. The student will receive a one-time stipend of $1,275, an office at the Center for the academic year, mentorship, and help publishing their project. Project examples include: a podcast, essays, poetry, website, film, visual artwork, film, etc. The application opens each May and residency starts in the fall semester.
2026-27 Storytellers
Keely Gill is a photographer from Lincoln, Neb., pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Photography with a minor in English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her work depicts people as cyborgs, merging analog and digital processes to reflect on the experience of living in an increasingly technology-dependent society. Through this work, she invites viewers to question their relationships with technology and consider how much control they truly have over the systems they have become dependent on.
Great Plains, Small World is a zine project documenting the people and relationships that shape communities across Nebraska and the Great Plains. Through photography, interviews, personal artifacts, and handwritten notes, the project follows a chain of individuals connected by the impact they have had on one another’s lives. By collecting these stories, the project celebrates the often-overlooked people who help us feel connected, rooted, and at home.
Brianna Rose (DeValk) Payne is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she specializes in the North American West, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Digital Humanities. Her current research investigates how American- and Native-born women across the Great Plains were stripped of their U.S. citizenship through marriage to unnaturalized immigrants throughout the early twentieth century. It traces both their efforts to regain this legal status alongside the intimate worlds in which those battles took shape — specifically, their marriages, kin networks, community affiliations, and self-defined racial and ethnic identities — to better understand how women worked both within and against dominant notions of what it meant to be American and to hold U.S. citizenship. This research is further being developed into a free, publicly accessible database designed to democratize access to underexplored histories of race, gender, and citizenship on the Great Plains.
Plains of Belonging is a digital film project that explores the unfamiliar history of Section 3 of the Expatriation Act of 1907, which stripped millions of American women of U.S. citizenship upon marriage to a foreigner. At its center are the experiences of women living in Omaha during the 1920s as they navigated the social and political pressures of their era and as they worked to define who they were and how they belonged. The project additionally gathers public interviews from people across the Great Plains region, inviting them to share their own perspectives on how citizenship functions, what it offers, and how its meaning shifts across different lived experiences.
Become a Great Plains storyteller!
Applications open in the spring semester.
Would you like to work with Nebraska Public Media and the Center for Great Plains Studies to tell a story about the Great Plains or the state of Nebraska?
The Center for Great Plains Studies and Nebraska Public Media invites any UNL undergraduate or graduate student to apply for its NEW Student Storyteller in Residence at Nebraska Public Media.
The successful applicant will be provided a one-time stipend of $1,275, an office at Nebraska Public Media for the 2027-28 academic year, and mentorship from both organizations.
Over the course of the year, storytellers will produce a visual and/or audio project that helps tell the story of the region. Sample storytelling projects include (but are not limited to):
- Short form video series
- Podcast (including audio only or both audio and video elements)
- Film
Applications must be received via email by June 2027. One applicant will be selected and will be notified in July.
To apply, email cgps@unl.edu with your CV/resumé and a cover letter of no more than two pages that includes:
- Why you are interested in the program
- Your current year and program of study
- What VISUAL/AUDIO project you would like to pursue and how it relates to Nebraska and/or the Great Plains
The program is open to any level of student (undergraduates or graduates) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
2025-26 Storyteller Mac Kelsey
Moving with the Hydrocommons is a project that asks what water teaches us. From streams to snow, what can we learn from water about how we move through and make sense of ourselves, each other, and the world beyond? Stories collected from the public, in response to this question, guided the creation of an experimental dance film about bodies of water in the Great Plains.
Mac Kelsey is a teacher, artist, researcher and PhD candidate in Educational Studies (Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education) at UNL. She focuses on developing curricula and pedagogies for technology/media studies, cultural theory, and somatic practices in education. "Water has become my greatest teacher for making sense of and moving through the complexity of the world: water takes on the shape of whatever holds it, all bodies have capacity to sink or float, it is impossible to cry under water. These reflections and observations are starting points for expanding this project into a public sphere, and inviting others to share their own educational experiences with water."
The project is currently on display at the Great Plains Art Museum through Dec. 19, 2026.
2024-25 Storyteller Kaitlyn Richards
Pride in the Plains is a podcast dedicated to amplifying queer voices across the often-overlooked Great Plains region. This project aims to shed light on the unique experiences, challenges, and triumphs of LGBTQ+ individuals living in various regions of the plains. In a region where queer narratives are frequently underrepresented, Pride in the Plains provides a platform for diverse perspectives and authentic storytelling. Through engaging interviews, personal stories, and thought-provoking discussions, the podcast explores how LGBTQ+ individuals navigate identity, community, and resilience in areas that might not always be seen as welcoming or inclusive.
Hosted by Kaitlyn Richards, a queer woman, Pride in the Plains seeks to foster connection and understanding by highlighting the voices of those who are often marginalized. Each episode brings listeners into the lives of people making a difference, confronting challenges, and celebrating victories, all while navigating the complex landscape of queer existence in the plains. With a distinguished academic background and a profound commitment to community service, Kaitlyn has made remarkable strides in both environmental sciences and LGBTQ+ advocacy. Pursuing a Master’s in Natural Resource Sciences with a focus on Hydrological Sciences at UNL, she complements her academic achievements with a strong record of leadership and community engagement. As a recipient of the Student Luminary Award and multiple university honors, including the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Contributions to the LGBTQA+ Community, Kaitlyn has demonstrated exceptional dedication to promoting inclusion and diversity.
2023-24 Storyteller Karla Hernandez Torrijos
Dear Great Plains is a postcard-writing campaign created by 2023-24 Student Storyteller in Residence Karla Hernandez Torrijos. The project hopes to tell a different story of the Great Plains: more complex, more diverse, and more nuanced. Karla facilitated public workshops and approached groups and individuals to gather letters to the Great Plains, encouraging people to use the space to reflect on lived experiences in the region: positive, negative, and everything in between.
Karla Hernandez Torrijos (she/her) is a poet and workshop facilitator who has been invited to read in venues across Nebraska, including The Bay, El Museo Latino, and The UNL Wick Alumni Center. The recipient of the 2022-2023 Irby F. Wood Prize for Poetry and the 2020-2021 Vreeland Award for Poetry, her writing interrogates our understanding of home, displacement, and the liminal space in between. Karla was the 2021-2022 Creative in Community Resident for The LUX Center for the Arts and is the inaugural Student Storyteller in Residence for The Center for Great Plains Studies. Her work can be found in Preposition: An Undercurrent Anthology.
The postcards became an art installation open to the public at the Great Plains Art Museum in November 2024.