Blog Archives

Getting Your Writing Done

5/22/2019

Have you ever wondered how busy people manage to produce regular articles, poems, stories, and books? How do they find time to craft quality work if you can’t squeeze in a few minutes now and then? What is the secret for managing the minutes in a day to allow time for your passion of writing?

Kevin Rabas has suggestions for you. With numerous published books of poems and stories, an active life as instructor in poetry and playwriting, as well as chair of the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism at Emporia State University, speaking engagements in many venues as the Kansas Poet Laureate (2017-19) and an active drummer in a jazz ensemble, Rabas can speak from experience about strategies for squeezing in time to write. How does he manage his prolific writing career?

Books he has written include Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, (2009) a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner.

Poets, Farmers, and Crafting a Tale

5/20/2019

April Pameticky moved to Wichita in 2003 and was swept up in the creative Vortex. The mother of two shares time between her high school English classroom and the burgeoning community of artists and writers in Kansas. She facilitated the Wichita Broadside Project 2017 and currently serves as editor of River City Poetry, an online poetry journal, and co-edits Voices of Kansas, a regional anthology of work from school-aged children across the state. Her own work can be seen in journals like Malpais Review, KONZA, Chiron Review, and Turtle Island Quarterly. She is also the author of several chapbooks, Sand River and Other Places I’ve Been (Finishing Line Press); and Anatomy of a Sea Star (Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press).

At KAC 2019, she will offer two seminars:

Let Poetry inform your Prose: The Art & Craft of Telling a Tale: How could the poetic lens inform your writing? Are there ways of training the ear and eye to better turn a narrative line? Sonya Chung, teacher and blogger, writes “Fiction is a Trudge, Poetry is a Dance” and that good literary fiction is “language-rich, language-precise, language-driven.” Is she right? We’ll explore some common poetry techniques that translate well into a variety of written forms, including memoir and long-form fiction. Attend this session and expect to do a little writing and responding to a prompt. We’ll use revision to demonstrate the power of repetition and metaphorical language.

Poet as Farmer–how journaling plants seeds of Creativity: Whether you ascribe to Natalie Goldberg’s Zen daily practice, or Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way, journaling can be an incredibly productive tool. But how do writers get started? Are prompts part of the process?

What of word lists? When do you know that a seed might be ready for harvest? In this session, we’ll explore sparks for creativity and examine some possible resources and activities. Expect to write and journal as part of the process.

Contact April at:

[email protected]

[email protected]

Hook ‘Em!

Meet Duane Johnson

5/15/2019

Here at Kansas Authors Club, we are THANKFUL for the many individuals who share their talents in helping us to build a bigger, better writing community. Today we would like to introduce our new State Vice President, Duane Johnson.

Duane Johnson
2019 State Vice President
Book Contest Manager

Duane Johnson is a retired journalist who treats his poetry as an oral art form. He has published a volume of poetry entitled "Evolution's Promise" and is currently working on a novella and two other volumes of poetry.

Lives in Topeka. Married to a social worker. Two grown children. Modest house with gray siding on a dead-end street. Chain saw, fishing gear, and kayak in the garage. And the nearby 400-acre lake and surrounding woods is his laboratory.

Duane has been an active member of District 1 since 2014. He served as president of District 1 in 2018.

Visit Duane’s website: http://www.viewfromsmokyhill.com/

Now Taking Submissions for rhythm-a-ning, a poetry & music event at the 2019 convention

5/15/2019

Rhythm-A-Ning: A Poetry & Music Event, will take place at the 2019 Kansas Authors Club state convention, on the Saturday, October 5th, from 11:00-11:50 AM. Poets will read their poems through once while two accompanying musicians and the audience listen; then the same poem will be read through again with the two musicians improvising to the poem. This will result in a spontaneous ekphrastic experience for all; poets, musicians, and audience. Join us in this unique auditory experience! The accompanying musicians are Bill Glenn on percussion and Seth Carrithers on acoustic bass, two well-known Wichita improvisatory musicians.

Poetry selection is via a blinded juried submission process, open to all KAC members statewide and out of state who will be attending the convention. It is open ONLY to KAC members, and your submission is a guarantee you will be at the convention to participate. Though the selection is by juried submission, this is not a contest. No prizes are awarded (except you get to participate!) and a rejection does not reflect on the quality of the submitted work, but rather what works best for the program.

Submission guidelines:
1: You may submit up to two poems in your submission.
2: Each poem must time out at less than three minutes max when read aloud (be sure to read your poem aloud and time it before submitting). Any poems over the three-minute limit will be automatically rejected.
3: Author’s name and personal information must not appear anywhere in the pages containing the poems.
4: Include a cover page with your name and complete contact info (including email address) and the titles of the poem(s) in your submission, along with your KAC district number and a brief bio of about 50 words or less. This should be the ONLY place identifying information appears. The bio will have no effect on the outcome of the judging (the judges will not see it) but may be used in the program should your work be accepted and space allows.
5: Poems may have been previously published. Just send us your best short work, new or old.
6: We will not be publishing your poems, so you need not worry about whether reading a new poem at Rhythm-A-Ning will constitute a first publication for that poem; it will not.
7: No multiple submissions please.
8: Send your submissions in .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .rtf format via email to Connie White at [email protected]. In the email header, put the following: Rhythm-A-Ning submission from (your name here).
9: The submission period opens May 15th and closes July 15th. Any submissions received before or after those dates will not be considered.
10: Notifications will go out via email in mid or late August at the latest. Notification may come from an email address other than Connie White’s.

If you have any questions you may email either Connie White, or Bob Dean at [email protected].

We recommend that you don’t worry about trying to write something “musical” as this is an improvisatory event and there is no way to predict what the end product will be. Just send us your best short poems, and have fun!

A Who Dunnit—Why Dunnit Approach to Writing History

5/13/2019

Kansas Authors Club District 5 is pleased to host a seminar at the October convention by Dr. David A. Nichols, A “Who Dunnit – Why Dunnit” Approach to Writing History.

A William & Mary Ph.D., Dr. Nichols is a Kansas native and the author of Ike and McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower’s Secret Campaign against Joseph McCarthy; A Matter of Justice; Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution; and Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis – Suez and the Brink of War. All Eisenhower books were published by Simon & Schuster. Nichols is also the author of Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Policy and Politics (Minnesota Historical Society, 2012).

Revealed for the first time, Ike and McCarthy is the full story of how President Eisenhower masterminded the downfall of the anti-Communist demagogue Senator Joseph McCarthy. Behind the scenes, Eisenhower loathed McCarthy, the powerful Republican senator notorious for his anti-Communist witch hunt. In spite of the public’s perception that Ike was unwilling to challenge the senator, the president decided that dealing with the challenges behind the scenes, operating with a “hidden hand” to bring an end to the witch hunt, was a better approach. In Ike and McCarthy, a 2018 Kansas Notable book, Nichols uses documents previously unavailable or overlooked to authenticate the extraordinary story of Eisenhower’s anti-McCarthy campaign in an eye-opening and fascinating read.

In A Matter of Justice Nichols presents a dramatic reappraisal of the thirty-fourth president’s record throughout the early years of the civil rights revolution, revealing his lesser-known role in advancing civil rights. The account traces pivotal contributions of Ike’s administration to such events as the Brown decision and the desegregation of Little Rock schools.

A gripping tale of international intrigue and betrayal, Eisenhower 1956 is the white-knuckle story of how President Dwight D. Eisenhower guided the US through the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. The crisis climaxed in a tumultuous nine-day period fraught with peril just prior to the 1956 presidential election, with Great Britain, France, and Israel invading Egypt while the Soviet Union ruthlessly crushed rebellion in Hungary. Dr. Nichols draws on hundreds of documents previously unavailable to researchers, enabling the reader to look over Ike’s shoulder and follow him day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour, as he grappled with the greatest international crisis of his presidency. Nichols uses formerly top secret minutes of National Security Council and Oval Office meetings to illuminate a crisis that threatened to escalate into global conflict.

Lincoln and the Indians remains the only thorough treatment of a much-neglected aspect of Lincoln’s presidency. Placing Indian affairs in the broad context of Civil War politics and the settling of the West, Dr. Nichols covers the Sioux War of 1862 in Minnesota, the forced removal of the Navahos from their homeland to the deadly concentration camp at Bosque Redondo, and the massacre of Cheyennes by volunteer troops at Sand Creek. He also examines Lincoln’s inept handling of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory and the corrupt “Indian System” of government aid that mainly benefited ambitious whites.

Thanks in part to Nichols’ impact on the reassessment of Dwight Eisenhower as president; a poll of 193 historians in 2017 rated Eisenhower fifth among American presidents, following only Lincoln, Washington, and the two Roosevelts. David A. Nichols began his serious research and writing in his mid-60s after retiring from Southwestern College in Winfield, where he served for 25 years, including eleven as Vice President for Academic Affairs.

At the Wichita convention, Dr. Nichols will share about his most recent book (Ike and McCarthy) and related research, exploring research design, dealing with all kinds of sources, and finding a publisher. “Who Dunnit? And Why Dunnit?” You won’t want to miss his inside information and tips on meaningful research.

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RHYTHM-A-NING: A POETRY & MUSIC EVENT

5/1/2019

Submission period opens in 15 days!

Getting Your Writing Done

Poets, Farmers, and Crafting a Tale

Meet Duane Johnson

Now Taking Submissions for rhythm-a-ning, a poetry & music event at the 2019 convention

A Who Dunnit—Why Dunnit Approach to Writing History

​RHYTHM-A-NING: A POETRY & MUSIC EVENT

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RHYTHM-A-NING: A POETRY & MUSIC EVENT