District 7 of the Kansas Authors Club is sponsoring a writing contest for all writers, 18 and older, living in Kansas or members of KAC living in another state. The contest runs from May 1 to August 15, 2021. You do not need to be a member of District 7 to enter the contest. 

Writers should follow the Literary Contest rules on page 68 of the 2020 or 2021 KAC Yearbook or can find these rules on the contest page of the website. The theme of the contest is “Writing Through Difficulties.” Writers of prose or poetry are encouraged to follow the theme, but do not have to adhere to it.

The fee for each entry is $5.00 and only typed copies will be accepted: do not send e-mail.

Prizes in the amount of $25, $15 and $10 will be awarded to first, second, and third place winners in both prose and poetry. Honorable Mention in each category will receive certificates. 

Send entries to:  Sheryl Brenn, 892 County Road O, Levant, KS, 67743. Phone 785-586-2384.

A program presented at the May 15 meeting of District 1 by Stephen and Rosie Williams is now available to watch on the state Kansas Authors YouTube channel. The co-authors of "Nine Pairs of Boots in Vietnam" presented a program on the pros snd cons of co-authoring. They will also be part of the annual KAC convention where they will be presenting a workshop on working through PTSD in writing a book.
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May Author Talk:
Roy Beckemeyer

Stage Whispers

Winner:
2019 Nelson Poetry Book Award


Recording Available for Viewing by Members - Click Here​
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Roy will talk about the writing of his poetry book, Stage Whispers. Discussion will include how the chapters and layout came about, and how the poems were assigned to the chapters. He will read from the book as part of the discussion.

Don't forget to support our Kansas Authors! Buy a book. Review a book. Send a note of appreciation about a book. You can order Roy's book from publisher, Meadowlark Press, or wherever you buy books!

Congratulations to D5 member, Grant Overstake, on the re-release of Maggie Vaults Over the Moon!

Event Date: Tuesday, June 1, 2021 - 6:00pm

About the Book
When tragedy strikes the Steele Family Farm at harvest time, tearful Maggie finds herself grinding the gears of the giant grain truck, trying her best to replace her big brother, Alex, who died in a fiery car crash. If Maggie is going to escape her worst nightmare (being stuck on the farm forever), she'll need to ignore small-town critics, brave painful setbacks, and defy the heavy pull of gravity itself. As the pole-vault crossbar is raised dangerously higher, her future is quite literally up in the air. Taking cues from the voice within, Maggie bravely launches herself skyward. When the bar is raised to a record-setting height at the state championship meet, can she find the courage it takes to soar into a brighter future of her own making?



About the Author
Author and teaching artist Grant Overstake writes compelling novels on important themes for young people. His premier novel, Maggie Vaults Over the Moon (2012), was hailed as a "Fine YA novel about perseverance in sports and in life" by KIRKUS REVIEWS. Grant's second novel, The Real Education of TJ Crowley (2018), a story about thorny race relations during the Civil Rights Era, was a National Book of the Month selection by Bookclubz and named "Book of the Year" by the Kansas Authors' Club. His independent publishing firm, Grain Valley Publishing Company, produces award-winning novels with the help of fine editors and designers from around the nation. Learn more at www.grantoverstake.com.
The discussion questions for Maggie Vaults Over the Moon were created by Dr. Melissa I. White. She is a Language Arts (ELA) Teacher and Mental Performance Consultant with a Doctorate in Sport Psychology who uses Maggie Vaults Over the Moon to inspire her own athletes at Hempfield Area High School in Western Pennsylvania. Dr. White earned a master's degree in Exercise Science: Sport Psychology from California University of Pennsylvania, and a doctorate in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Western States. While earning her bachelor's degree in Elementary Education from Bethany College (West Virginia) she competed in the pole vault and javelin events. Like the hero Maggie Steele, Melissa was the only girl pole-vaulter at her high school, where she set a school record that lasted for over a decade. Her counseling practice, Performance Edge Consulting, helps athletes across the nation gain the mental edge to perform their best. In her spare time, Melissa enjoys spending time with her family, watching sporting events, listening to music, and most of all, training her Australian Shepherd, Wendy Lou, who also works with her clients as a sport therapy dog. To learn more about Dr. White's sport counseling service and download a free goal-setting worksheet, visit performanceedgeconsulting.org.

Julie A. Sellers (D1) will soon have a collection of her poems published by Blue Cedar Press of Wichita, Kan. Sellers’s chapbook, Kindred Verse, was inspired by Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 novel, Anne of Green Gables. Sellers was named the 2020 Prose Writer of the Year by the Kansas Authors Club and is excited to have her poetry recognized as well.

“Like Anne, I was often deemed impractical or scatterbrained, and my literary aspirations were mocked. But with Anne, I now knew I was not alone. If Anne existed and continued to exist in print after all those years, others must have identified with her, too, I reasoned, and I knew exactly who those people were: my kindred spirits,” says Sellers in the book’s preface. “If a piece of literature could so succinctly portray who we were, then I, too, intended to share my own writing with the world.”

Elizabeth Rollins Epperly, Professor Emerita and founder of the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island, said the poems are transformative and illustrate why the novel is a classic.

“Julie Sellers shares a lifetime reader’s pilgrimage to real and imagined places and moments, reflecting on her younger selves,” Epperly said. “Wise and gently playful, these beautiful pieces also celebrate a timeless nostalgia.”
Sellers and the publisher collaborated with Jay Wallace, assistant professor in Benedictine College’s Department of Art & Architecture, on the book design.

“Jay understood my vision perfectly,” Sellers said. “He captured the sensibilities of the pieces in the book and cover design and brought them to life.”

​The book’s launch is set for June 15, 2021, and Sellers will hold readings for interested groups following that. For more information, follow the author at https://www.facebook.com/julieasellersauthor.

If you want to learn about writing, editing, or publishing, then you’re invited to attend Saturday’s (May 22, 2021 - 1:30pm) District 6 meeting of the Kansas Authors Club. It’s free and open to the public.

The Zoom meeting will have five speakers. Tracy Million Simmons, founder of Meadowlark Press, and Cheryl Unruh, editor of 105 Meadowlark Reader: A Kansas Journal of Creative Nonfiction, will share their vision of gathering true Kansas stories.  The first issue of the journal highlights 35 talented Kansas writers from 25 counties.

Virtual attendees will also meet the other three prolific writers, all Kansas Authors Club members, and learn how they created their essays for submission for the spring issue. Each story is an authentic Kansas experience. The speakers, their home base, and essay titles, are: Miriam Iwashige, Partridge, “A Pandemic Privilege”; Julie Stielstra, Ellinwood/Chicago, “Barton County”; and Ginger Zyskowski, Seattle (formerly Hutchinson), “A Kansan and His Machines.”

There will be time for questions and answers.
105 Meadowlark Reader may be purchased at your local book store or at 105 Meadowlark Reader.

To join the 1:30 PM (CST) meeting, or to become a part of a community of Kansas writers, contact Jim Potter, president of District 6, at jim@copintheclassroom.com or 620-899-3144.

KAC and District 6 has a new member. Let us all welcome Jared Vaughn. 

Name: Jared Vaughn

Town: Hutchinson

What kind of writing do you do? fiction

What writing projects have you completed or are currently working on?

My first book was The Longest Time. I published the sequel, Another Time, and now I'm writing the 3rd book in the series of 4.

I also published a short story book of local writers called Free Time Tales and we're working on a follow-up to release in October.

Tobias' Travels is a kid's book I'm publishing that was written by a brilliant teenager named Shoshanna Aaliyah.
 
Do you have a website or a facebook page that you'd like us to share with other KAC members? 

My website is Time Honored Productions and my Facebook page is Jared Vaughn and Time Honored Productions | Facebook

I'm also on Goodreads, Instagram, YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, and Smashwords.
 
Is there anything else you’d like other KAC members to know about you? 

I decided to self publish because I wanted to publish other people's work as well. I was able to do that in less than a year of publishing my book and now I have several more lined up.

Time Honored Productions has grown to include artists, actors, and cosplayers because storytelling comes in many forms. The future is very bright.
 
What would you like to gain from your membership with the Kansas Authors Club?  

I'm a big believer in supporting others in their pursuits. I see this as a great support system to help everyone achieve their goals by the shared knowledge of resources and opportunities as well as sharpening writing skills.
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Kerry Moyer is a member of Kansas Authors Club, District 2, and current Prose Contest Manager. He is also an active member of Emporia Writers. He is a poet and the author of two poetry collections, Dirt Road (2019) and Rust & Weeds (2020) through Kellogg Press. His poems  Fireflies and Mass Street were published in Astra Magazine in December of 2020. Kerry has a new book release planned for the summer of 2021. 

Rosie and Steve Williams, Topeka authors, will present this Saturday’s District 1 KAC program. The memoirists will focus their zoom presentation on the pitfalls and potential rewards of co-authoring. They know all about that after collaborating on “Nine Pairs of Boots in Vietnam: Steps to Healing Every Veteran Needs to Know.”
Steve carried his untold story like a heavy backpack of unprocessed emotions for 50 years until Rosie helped him get it out of his head and heart and onto paper, finally. But it was wasn’t easy. Their process can help other co-authors.
​If you'd like to sit in on the zoom session Saturday at 1 p.m., send an email to Anne Spry and she'll send you the link.

Anne Spry got her first writing accolades in a fifth grade What I Did Last Summer assignment and continued yucking it up as a humorist in her own Missouri newspaper for 27 years. She sold the newspaper in 2011, supposedly retiring, but fooled everyone (even herself) by launching a new writing and book publishing career. By then she had pushed southward into Jesse James territory and landed book clients with famous relatives like Satchel Paige, or the author who crossed the state line to write historic stuff about Jayhawkers and John Brown. Then she really became a traitor to her Mizzou Tiger journalism roots by landing in Topeka (her birthplace) a few years ago. Now she pretends to be all purple, or all blue and red, depending on which of her many diehard sports fan relatives supports KU or K-State and is within earshot.

The best thing she did since moving back to her birthplace and settling along the Wakarusa River was to join the Kansas Authors Club. She is still scratching her head over how a Bushwhacker could become president of District 1 a few months after enlisting.

Spry is a memoirist who has helped several writers publish personal histories. She has a Bachelor of Journalism degree from MU and a master’s in communication arts from Memphis State University. She has two works in progress: Bless Me Auntie: Finding Purpose as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil and Journaling Through Difficult Times to Find Healing and Transformation. Her author website is under construction but its working title is “Late Blooming Onion.”
Her first memoir was a collection of newspaper columns called Letters from Home. She has co-authored other books, including a true-crime memoir, Searching for Summer: A Solved but Unresolved Missing Persons Case that launched in 2019.

Anne serves as President of District 1 in 2021, and is leading the Convention Committee as District 1 is host for the annual convention this year.

As a writer, Kris Polansky, is best known for her poems, four of which were published in Tallgrass Voices edited by Gary Lechliter. She experiments with various poetic forms, studying how content and form shape each other. She grew up in Western Kansas (short grass country), writing puppet plays and short stories. She took a fiction writing class from James Gunn at the University of Kansas and went on to teach middle school English and social studies ten years before returning to school, the Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas, where (she jokes) she learned to write creative nonfiction. She has been named KAC Poet of the Year twice, most recently October 2020. Her poem, “Turning Points” won the 2016 Martin Luther King, Jr. Art and Writing Contest, adult division, Manhattan, Kansas. She served KAC for four years (2010-13) as Youth Contest Manager. Subsequently, she has served as a judge for the youth contest and is currently KAC Financial Secretary. She is also serving as KAC District 4 treasurer.  

If you have ever considered entering the murky realm of co-authoring you'll want to hear what Stephen and Rosie Williams of Topeka have to say. They're presenting at the May 15 District 1 zoom meeting at 1 p.m. The couple launched their book, "Nine Pairs of Boots in Vietnam: Steps to Healing Every Veteran Needs to Know," during the pandemic and have been promoting it as part of the state veterans group Stephen coordinates, Point Man Ministries.
Information on the link to the zoom meeting will be posted later.

Writer, teacher, editor, and publisher, Curtis Becker, has been a member of Kansas Authors Club (D2) since 2018 and has maintained the District 2 Website since 2019. In 2020 he was a member of the team that produced the online state convention and in 2021 he will be managing the state newsletter. He is also the vice-president of District 2. He is a member of the Emporia Writers Group and gives readings/hosts open mics in the area. He writes poetry, short fiction, memoir, and magazine articles.
 
With almost fifteen years in the classroom, students at the middle school, high school, and college levels have studied writing and literature with him. He has sponsored school yearbooks, newspapers, and scholars bowl teams and has presented on educational issues at regional conferences. Becker has edited sixteen books including Watch Your Head 2 by Kevin Rabas (October 2020) and, as Kellogg Press, published ten, including KAC's Childrens Book of the Year (2020), I Love the Child by Ronda Miller.
 
Becker grew up in Goodland and earned a BA in English from Emporia State University. He also has a Masters in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. A lifelong learner, Becker loves to attend workshops and continue to grow as a writer/teacher.
 
Recent Highlights:
 
Published in
Walt Whitman Collaborative Project, 2020
Spotlight Magazine, 2020
Great Plains Traverse, 2020
Bards Against Hunger, 5th Anniversary Edition, 2019
 
Books
He Watched and Took Note (Poetry/Short Fiction Collection) 2018
 
www.curtisbeckerbooks.com
www.kelloggpress.com
 

 Kansas Authors Club is run by an all-volunteer board. Officers from across the state devote time monthly to everything from district programming to our annual writing contests and convention. Visit with your district representative about how you can contribute!

Linzi Garcia plays with language in poetry, essays, book reviews, and publicity materials. Her full-length poetry collection Thank You was published by Spartan Press in 2018, and since then she has been continually writing and publishing poetry about her experiences as a newspaper reporter, bartender, family gal, traveler, and philosopher. She and her partner Jase Buck co-authored a chapbook, Live a Great Story (Analog Submission Press 2019), about their short but impactful time in England. 
 
Linzi also writes feature articles for Spotlight, the Emporia State University alumni magazine. She pursued her MA in English at ESU, during which she worked as an editorial assistant for Flint Hills Review and Bluestem Press, and as a graduate assistant to Kansas Poet Laureate Emeritus Kevin Rabas. Her research focused on Kansas poetry and small press publishing. Outside of the university, she was a reporter for The Emporia Gazette and bartender at Mulready’s Pub. 
 
Garcia currently teaches English composition at ESU and still bartends after class. She continues her work with Rabas, which primarily consists of curating, designing, editing, and promoting his chapbooks and books, including Elizabeth’s City, Kansas Letters to a Young Poet, and More Than Words. Garcia also currently works as the publicist for Meadowlark Press.
 
Garcia became involved with KAC after building friendships with members across the state, particularly in Salina, Emporia, and in Lawrence, where she currently resides. She served as the 2020 free verse poetry contest judge and, after joining the club in 2021, serves as the 2021 poetry contest manager.