Carol Yoho (D1), Duane Johnson (D1 and 2020-21 State President), and Tracy Million Simmons (D2 and 2022 State President) finally managed to meet in person to celebrate a second successful virtual convention. (Click here for highlights from the 2021 Convention.) Missing: Thea Rademacher (D1).

News for the 2022 Convention, to be held in person in Lawrence, Kansas, with a virtual component, is pending announcement... soon. Meanwhile, members can go ahead and reserve a hotel room and purchase advertising in the convention program.

It is a pleasure to nominate Hazel Hart.  She is a person who excels at her writing and editing craft but does not seek applause.  I met Hazel when my manuscript of Posts of a Mid-century Kid was a 150,000-word rambling of posts.
 
We met at the coffee shop in Emporia and that began my appreciation of Hazel and the editing process. Hazel told me to cut 50,000 words from my book. That seemed daunting but as I marked off posts, I began to see a new story emerge.
 
For the next year, Hazel and I would meet for coffee and she helped me craft 92,000 words into a clean manuscript.  The first time she sent me edits, she advised not to stress out with all of the red down the side.  I did anyway.  We made a style sheet and with each edit, I saw the final book emerge.
 
One of my favorite memories with Hazel is when she asked me if I knew how many times my kitties made biscuits in my book? No, I didn’t but, it turned out to be many times.  We also discovered that I liked the word “tiny” which appeared 100 times and had to be reinvented.
 
Hazel is a gifted editor.  She has also become a good friend and I am indebted to her for her wise guidance and knowledge.  She always hears the writer’s voice.
 
On top of her gifts as editor, Hazel excels as an author. She has published 13 titles of her own, from how-to books on writing to suspense and historical fiction. In September, Hazel released the 5th volume in a series of historical fiction set in Kansas, The Pierce Family Saga. This series has had tremendous success on Amazon, with volume 1 consistently ranking in the top 100 in several categories including frontier fiction and literary sagas. 
 
Hazel is a multi-year winner of the Kansas Voices contest out of Winfield, as well as a frequent winner in the prose division of Kansas Authors Club contests.
 
For her talent as an author, as well as her skill in guiding others to improve their manuscripts, I nominate Hazel Hart for an Achievement Award.
 
Nominated by: Ann Vigola Anderson

Each year, members are asked to nominate those who deserve special recognition for service to the club, for work on a special accomplishment, or for achievement in writing. ​

Anne Shiever joined Kansas Authors Club in 2004. She is a familiar face at our annual conventions, as well as at state board meetings, where the real work of the club gets done. She always has a smile on her face and kind words for her fellow KAC members. She has served as a past D4 president, as well as many years running on the state board including positions of publicity, assistant recording secretary, and now Awards Chair. I am honored to call Anne Shiever friend and fellow writer, and I want to take this opportunity to thank you, Anne, for all you do for our organization.

​Nominated by: Tracy Million Simmons

Each year, members are asked to nominate those who deserve special recognition for service to the club, for work on a special accomplishment, or for achievement in writing. 
​

Letter of Nomination:

It was a painful decision for each member of the 2021 Convention Planning Committee to pull the plug on their plans to host a live convention in Topeka. For more than a year, I sat in on many of their planning sessions. I was impressed by the energy and attention to detail as they planned their marketing strategy and put together what I think you will agree is an impressive lineup of speakers and workshop presenters. Multiple times, some members of the committee met with the director of events at Ramada Inn, or simply wandered through on their own, to examine the facilities and make sure they understood what would happen where.

Because this is a virtual convention, you can never have a full appreciation of how much work went into planning those aspects of the convention that had to be scrapped. For a year, they planned for a live convention under the cloud of uncertainty created by COVID, knowing that much of their planning might be of no avail. Then, in early spring, as numbers of cases and deaths dramatically dropped and the pandemic appeared to be running its course, they voted to forge ahead full speed with their plans for a live convention.

The emotional roller coaster they then endured as the Delta variant heated things up again made it all the more difficult for them to cancel the live portion of the convention. But it was clear as they discussed their decision, that what they dreaded most was the thought of feeling personally responsible for some of you becoming sick or even dying as a result of infection at the convention.

Because this is a virtual event, you can never have a full appreciation of how much work went into planning those aspects that had to be scrapped. I could sense their disappointment as each one raised his or her hand to vote to torpedo much of their own plans. Through their determination to bring you and me a high-quality convention, these individuals serve as role models for us all. We can learn from them how to pivot and persevere when confronted with circumstances we cannot control.
I hope you will give them a thumbs up as we call out their names.

Members of the committee are:

District 1:
Fred Appelhanz
Audrey Bosley
Max Dunavan
Reaona Hemmingway
Ruth Maus
Anne Spry
Janet Jenkins Stotts
Barbara Waterman Peters
Carol Yoho

District 5:
Connie Rae White

  
Nominated by: Duane Johnson

Each year, members are asked to nominate those who deserve special recognition for service to the club, for work on a special accomplishment, or for achievement in writing.
 
In 2021, Connie Rae White submitted Sandee Taylor for acknowledgment. In her nomination, Connie said, “Sandee has been a member of District 5 for several years, but this year she took the new position of D5 Webmaster. Sandee has been invaluable for her internet skills as we navigated COVID and incorporated distanced meetings with Zoom. Sandee has contributed many hours to revising our D5 web page and posting announcements and has helped keep my head above water in the deepening technological challenges.”

The nomination was seconded by Tracy Million Simmons. "Sandee has taken the D5 portion of our website in hand and keeps it beautiful and tidy. As well, she helps by posting applicable D5 news to state website."

Sandee received a certificate of thanks for her work on both the D5 and the state website. Thank you, Sandee!

Manager: Linzi Garcia
 
Theme Contest:
Amy Sage Webb-Baza is Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Emporia State University, where she was named Roe R. Cross Distinguished Professor and directs the Donald Reichardt Center for Publishing and Literary Arts. She is managing editor for Bluestem Press and Flint Hills Review. She publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and is author of Your Own Life: Kansas Stories (Woodley Press, 2012).
 
Classical Poetry:
Kristin Van Tassel teaches writing and American literature at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. She writes essays and poetry about place, teaching, motherhood, and travel. Her work has appeared in literary, academic, and travel publications, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, World Hum, ISLE, The Journal of Ecocriticism, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Wraparound South, Temenos, Burningword, Capsule Stories, and About Place.
 
Free Verse:
Jason Ryberg is the author of fourteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is Are You Sure Kerouac Done It This Way!? (co-authored with John Dorsey, and Victor Clevenger, OAC Books, 2021). He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a billygoat named Giuseppe and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.
 
Narrative Poetry:
John E. Epic is the author of the non-fiction memoir, Ill Digestions, the illustrated children’s book, Such a Little Apple: the anatomy of a bully, and numerous poetry books that illuminate beauty within the mundane, meaning within the seemingly insignificant, and humor to all of life’s absurdities.  As an avid advocate of the arts John E. Epic co-created DroneBEE Gazette Publishing, an agency dedicated to publishing previously unknown artists, poets, photographers and authors. Bio Pic by Rim Valiakhmetov (Moscow, Russia)  
 
Whimsy:
Lori Brack is the author of three books of poems: A Case for the Dead Letter Detective (Kelsay, 2021), Museum Made of Breath (Spartan, 2018), and A Fine Place to See the Sky (The Field School, 2010). She lives in Lucas where she is a freelance writer for nonprofits, a writing coach and instructor.
 
 
Japanese Poetry:
Dr. Cynthia Patton has been a member of the English faculty at Emporia State University since 2000.  For the past fifteen years, she has researched and taught Japanese literature and film in English translation, as well as her original fields (19th- and 20th-century British literature, literary criticism and theory).  Her favorite haiku is by Yosa Buson:
harusame ya monogatari yuku mino to kasa.  Spring rain: / so the story goes-- / straw raincoat and umbrella
 
Performance Poetry:
Matt Spezia is the Kansas Program Director for Poetry for Personal Power. In art, Matt is a national powerhouse of lyrical ability, combining an eight-time national award-winning poetry style, Kansas City hip hop, and thespian teachings. He has three albums and a book published and has appeared in an anthologized CD and book. Matt uses his platform and his art to promote self confidence and betterment, social awareness, and cultural change. Outside of art, Matt is a mentor and has worked to directly influence school children in 36 different districts. He has given numerous presentations on performing for the public forum at a number of state-wide venues and on the floor of the Kansas capitol building. Matt has experience with hosting radio shows and producing commercials, music videos, and films. Above all, Matt believes everything is a #teameffort.
 
New Poets:
Jason Baldinger is from Pittsburgh and looks forward to roaming the country writing poems again. His newest books are A Threadbare Universe (Kung Fu Treachery Press) and The Afterlife is a Hangover (Stubborn Mule Press).  A History of Backroads Misplaced: Selected Poems 2010-2020 (Kung Fu Treachery) is forthcoming later this year. His work has been published widely across print journals and online. You can hear him read his work on Bandcamp and on lp’s by The Gotobeds and Theremonster.
 

Contest Manager: Kerry Moyer
 
Judge: Writing for Youth
Sarah Moyer is a career educator in Emporia, Kansas who has taught at the elementary school level since 2002. Sarah is an Emporia State University graduate and resides in Emporia with her husband Kerry and their boys Edward and Miles.
 
Judge: Playwriting
Cate Crosby Grundleger received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in Second and Foreign Language Education. She is currently teaching in the Intensive English Program at Emporia State and First Year Writing at Baruch College in NYC. She enjoys cycling, reading, and exploring with her husband, Adam. 
 
Judge: Memoir & Short Story
Lindsey Bartlett teaches Composition to first year writing students at Emporia State University. Bartlett is an Emporian by choice and considers the Flint Hills region of Kansas her home. She grew up on a dilapidated farmstead in west-central Kansas, and her rural background informs much of her writing. Bartlett has published one poetry collection, Vacant Childhood. Her writing and photography have appeared in Flint Hills Review, 105 Meadowlark Reader, and MidAmerican Fiction and Photography.
 
Judge: Humor
Born and raised in Barber County, Kansas, Marcia Lawrence has worked as a journalist, photo-finish photographer, stockbroker, editor, corn detasseler, musician, and mom. She is a lifelong scholar of regional history and a passionate researcher. Lawrence is the author of SPIRIT OF THE PRAIRIE: THE HISTORY OF THE MAKING OF THE MEDICINE LODGE INDIAN PEACE TREATY PAGEANT. She's currently researching and writing the biography of Franklin L. Gilson, legendary founder of the Speech and Theatre Department at the Kansas State Normal (now ESU) and author of the play JOHN BARCLAY, based on William Allen White's best seller, A CERTAIN RICH MAN. If all goes according to plan, PROFESSOR OF PAGEANTRY will make its debut in 2022. She lives in Emporia, Kansas.
 
Judge: Flash Fiction
Michelle Zumbrum is a self-describing bleeding-heart social worker, writers’ groupie, and single mom of two semi-sweet/semi-surly teenagers. Hobbies include cat calling cats, imbibing cheap wine, and watching “CinemaSins” on YouTube.
 
Judge: 1st Chapter of Book
Brian Dyer is a social worker in Emporia, Kansas. He enjoys spending time with his kids, craft beer, music, Kansas, and nature.
 
Judge: Theme
Lydia Kautz is the Editor of the Junction City Union in Junction City, KS. She is also a student with Emporia State University's SLIM program and a hobby writer of fiction and other fun things.

Jeff G. Guernsey – 10 years
Ronda Miller – 10 years
Ray “Griz” Racobs – 10 years
Gloria Zachgo – 10 years
Michael D. Graves – 10 years
 
Susan Hill – 15 years
Arlene Rains Graber – 15 years
Betty A. Laird – 15 years
 
Tracy Million Simmons – 20 years
 
Joann Williams – 25 years
 
Maryann Barry – 30 years
Lorine A. Gleue – 30 years
Cynthia J. Ross – 30 years
 
Frankie Roland – 35 years
 
Millie Horlacher – 40 years
 
 
Octogenarians
Carol Katsantoness
Frank Powers*
Susan Hill
 
*has reached 5 years of membership
 

From Judge, Robert Rebein:
​
This year’s field of entries featured outstanding books in multiple genres, including adult fiction (including historical fiction), young adult fiction, memoir, and biography. The sheer variety of submissions made the contest particularly difficult to judge. Indeed, I could easily have picked a separate winner from each other above categories. For this reason, I have chosen to name not only an overall winner but also the three finalists from which the winner was selected. Feel free to recognize all three or just the winner, as you see fit.
 
My three finalists are:
 
They Met at Wounded Knee by Gretchen Cassel Eick
The Big Quiet by Lisa D. Stewart
Opulence, Kansas by Julie Stielstra
 
Gretchen Cassel Eick’s They Met at Wounded Knee tells story of Charles Ohiyesa Eastman, a Dakota physician, and Elaine Goodale Eastman, a teacher and supervisor of education among the Sioux, who met while witnessing the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and subsequently married and raised six children, even as they worked tirelessly on behalf of citizenship and equal rights for Native Americans. The book is meticulously researched and written and makes important contributions to the fields of biography, history, and Native American Studies. It succeeds not only as a portrait of two complex people and their equally complex marriage, but also as a portrait of a turbulent era in American history—roughly the last decade of the 19th century and the first three decades of the 20th century—that has much in common with the times in which we live now.
 
On the basis of its contributions to multiple fields and its daring exploration of form as a double biography, I have chosen to recognize Gretchen Cassel Eick’s They Met at Wounded Knee as the winner of this year’s J. Donald Coffin Award.
 
Please extend my congratulations to the . . . winner of this year’s award.
 
Thanks again and best wishes,
Robert Rebein
2021 Coffin Memorial Book Award Judge

Judge:
​
Robert Rebein was born and raised in Dodge City, where his family has farmed and ranched since the late 1920s. Rebein received his BA in English from the University of Kansas. His subsequent degrees include an MA from Exeter University in England and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of two award-winning memoirs about growing up in Kansas, Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City (Swallow, 2013) and Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home (Kansas, 2017), as well as a work of literary criticism, Hicks, Tribes, & Dirty Realists: American Fiction after Postmodernism (Kentucky, 2001). His unpublished works include a novel-in-progress entitled The Last Rancher. Rebein teaches creative writing at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in downtown Indianapolis.

There were several nominees this year that made excellent use of visual art alongside their original verse, and I was charmed enough by each of them that I struggled to put them in a comparable context with works that did not include a visual antecedent for the poetry. The engaging and immediate doodles that illustrate Ruth Maus's Valentine and the historicizations that Mark Scheel offers as paratext for Joseph Maino’s photographs in Star Chaser were both enchanting, but I think the most impressive entrant from this subgenre of poetry was by Robert L. Dean, Jr. I found the intertextual ekphrastic play between Dean’s poems and Steven Schroeder’s watercolors in The Aerialist Will Not Be Performing worked to emphasize the elastic exchange of aesthetic impressions that the images create as context for the poems. I was delighted to find references to REM peppered alongside allusions to Homeric verse, both given equal weight as vehicles for transtextual poetic maneuvers managed with aplomb. 
 
In spite of how impressed I was with that book, I ultimately decided that I must use the verse alone as a means of adjudication. In an effort to decide using that criterion, I noted that three poets in particular—Brian Daldorph, Michael Poage, and Janice Northerns—made use of intricate formal structures for some of their poems but also included poetry that felt highly naturalistic, improvisational, or even overheard. All three poets somehow made at least two disparate modes of narrative verse fit easily into their three respective volumes, and since the Nelson prize is for a book rather than a single poem, I thought I ought weigh the poetry within each volume in terms of how it functions as a unified whole. 
 
Daldorph’s sequencing of Kansas Poems worked beautifully a means by which to evoke the cycles of seasons and human lives; those cycles are woven into the content of poetry, whether rendered individually in bursts of uncomfortable confession, as in “The Football Coach’s Wife,” or colloquially, as is the case for mundane childhood remembrances or even for lists, as in “Laurel Avenue,” that all feel strangely profound in spite of their everyday qualities. Each poem is a small textured fragment given meaning by its place in a larger mosaic that creates an image of Kansas as both a landscape and a cultural context for the residual agrarian rhythms that still shape the early 20th Century.
 
Likewise, the narrative voice in Poage’s You Must Have Your Famine is less varied than the speakers who make up Daldorph's polyphonic mosaic, but the form of Poage’s poetry shifts from the controlled and neoclassical (perhaps most obviously on display in “Scottish Sonnet”) to the conversational and postmodern (“Affection,” for instance, seems as much a review of Lahiri’s The Lowlands as a musing on what love looks like from the outside). As the going-away and coming-home of the poems’ speaker pushes readers away and then pulls them close by turns, the mode of address moves from proud to vulnerable and back around by way of shame and delight, which is surely an achievement of narrative suture owed to the poet’s great skill.
 
In spite of the achievements I’ve noted in Maus, Scheel, Dean, Daldorph and Poage’s collections, I think my favorite of the nominated books is Some Electric Hum. Like Daldorph, Northerns excels at embedding a depth of characterization in an abbreviated sketch of her poem’s speakers, some of whom seem to confess or extemporize in direct address to her readers. Not all the narrative poems function this way; some of the speakers are spied upon from around hospital corners or just-glimpsed in family histories told by distant cousins to readers who find themselves embarrassed witnesses of private dramas and secret tragedies. Northern crafts tender portraits of women held hostage by desire, imagining them in a kind of atemporal community, grappling together with transgenerational trauma and pedestrian misogyny. The poems “Boys Would Come on Horses,” “Zinnia Women,” and “Mother-daughter Dresses” fit together like a puzzle, and their shared thematic content sets up a series of formal poems about marriage in the final section of the volume. This section also achieves the combination of craft with innovation that was so apparent in Poage’s verse; Northerns includes a modified sestina about what holds married people together, a fourteener-ballad about how sometimes marriages fall apart anyway, and an open-verse musing on what it means to watch a once-dear loved one slowly pass away. Whether considering family, motherhood or romantic connections, Some Electric Hum reads to me like a treatise on the ways communities are crafted by wanting, having, and then letting go. Perhaps this year more than any other, readers may wish to consider how desire, possession and loss might become meaningful if understood as necessary preconditions for human connectedness. Janice Northerns uses her poetry to explore how wanting, needing, and even withholding are the practices by which families are forged, maintained, and, when necessary, broken. This book exemplifies her skill in giving language to those fragile and ephemeral experiences of connection, as well as her determination to understand how connection might be felt in the barely perceptible hum of a completed circuit, closed but still alive with alternating electric currents. For this reason, I feel that her work is most deserving of this year's Nelson Award and I congratulate her on the achievement. 
 
All best,
Dr. Sandra Cox

Both of Ringer’s books are collections of very short pieces about people, businesses, places, and events in or related to Kansas . . . all the stories take place someplace in Kansas or are about people with some Kansas connection. Fatty Arbuckle, for example, only lived in Kansas as an infant, but has a relatively long story in True Tales. . . the stories are intriguing and interesting, some of the featured people are also intriguing and I wanted to read more about them (Pelican Pete in Eccentric Kansas, for example, and Maud Stevens Wagner in True Tales).
 
Ringer’s writing style is casual, as if he recorded and transcribed the stories being spoken rather than writing them. This makes the books easy and quick to read. They are not meant to be academic history, but collections of stories, and in this endeavor, Ringer is completely successful.
 
Dr. Ellen Hansen
2021 Martin Kansas History Judge

Ellen Hansen is professor emerita in the Department of Social Sciences, Sociology, and Criminology at Emporia State University, where she taught cultural geography for 22 years. Her areas of teaching and research interest are gender and development, geography and history of the U.S.-Mexico border, and geography of Kansas and the Midwest. She is a fiber arts enthusiast, has taught knitting classes at Flint Hills Technical College, and is faculty advisor to the Unwind Fiber Crafts Club at Emporia State. She is rarely without a knitting or crochet project in her hands.

Cover Design: Cynthia Beard
Interior Design: Lisa Stewart, Robert Stewart, & Meadowlark Press.

Cover Design  A
Excellent choice of imagery and typography that directly ties into the narrative of the story. You almost can literally “judge the book by the cover,” with the attractive, evocative photograph on the front, and the effective use of the blurbs and the brief summary about the author and her intention on the back. The colors effectively promoted a story told close to the land, with the use of sky blue and earthy green. The subject of the cover photo obviously represented the author and it showed her doing exactly what the book is about—a memoir of a journey of discovery while riding a horse in the countryside. Professionally printed and bound, the cover presents an attractive premise to the reader, welcoming one to open the book and begin the author’s trip alongside her.
 
Cohesion of Cover and Interior Pages  A
The interior pages related to the cover design by use of the display font featuring a hand-honed, slightly distressed but easy to read font. The cover design is somewhat minimal, with a big empty sky at the top, and the chapter openings echo that feeling throughout.
 
General Format  A-
Everything followed the standards set out by IBPA. All pages were in the correct order and the suggested elements were included.  I was a bit puzzled by the use of the little pointer…I believe it alluded to the quote by Issa, with a radish as a pointer, but if I have any criticism of the book, it presented more of a “break” than was required by the narrative. It wasn’t used enough throughout to be an effective design element and seemed somewhat distracting.
 
Typography  A
The use of an elegant typeface for the body text, perfectly leaded, and the attractive wide margins make the book appear to be an “easy read.” Clean white space at the beginning of the chapter, and the choice to make all chapters appear on the right side present a welcome break for the reader’s eyes. Professional composition of the text, with minimal hyphenation and awkward line breaks.
 
Printing and Binding  A
Printing was well-done, with colors appearing bright but earthy. Soft, matte finish to the cover adds to the more rustic feel of the book. Off-white, non-glossy pages are welcoming and facilitate long sessions of reading.

Judge:
Desiree Ultican loves art, history and mysterious circumstances. She is a graphic designer by trade, a collector of vintage paper ephemera by inclination and an author by desire and determination after publishing her first book in 2010—the steampunk novel The Empress of the Clouds. Over her 40+ years as a graphic designer (as Desiree Mueller), she designed the interior pages for several books for Andrews McMeel Universal and The Vintage Workshop, both based in the Kansas City area. While working for various advertising agencies and design firms in town, she designed books for corporate and municipal clients. She currently is the art director for Lamcraft Inc., a supplier of laminated bookmarks and products for the funeral home industry and for museums nationwide, including the U.S. Capitol and the National World War I Museum in Kansas City. Desiree keeps company with her husband, Jim, and their cats in Independence, Missouri.

​My choice for the winner of the Children's Book Award is Zara the Zebu, by Adelaide Bauman, illustrated by Vita Kalmutska.
 
ZARA THE ZEBU is charming and well-written. Child listeners and readers will relate to Zeni’s goal of forming a friendship with Zara and the obstacles she has to overcome to earn the calf's trust. This is a story of persistence and growing empathy, presented in a lively and child-like way. Zeni solves her problem herself, with supportive adults in the background, which gives agency to her as the main character. The bright color palette of the illustrations complements the story. The portrayal of Zeni in text and illustration is appealing and culturally sensitive. Congratulations, Adelaide, on a wonderful book!
 
Sue Lowell Gallion
2021 Children’s Book Award Judge

Sue Lowell Gallion is an award-winning children’s author of picture books, nonfiction books, and early readers. Her newest picture book is PUG & PIG AND FRIENDS, illustrated by Joyce Wan, published by Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster, releasing August 17, 2021. Sue lives in Leawood, Kansas, and is a native of the Kansas City area. 
 
PUG MEETS PIG was published in 2016 and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. It won the Missouri Library Association Building Block Award in 2018. The second in the series, PUG & PIG TRICK-OR-TREAT, received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.
 
In 2020, Sue’s first nonfiction title, OUR WORLD, A FIRST BOOK OF GEOGRAPHY, illustrated by Lisk Feng, was published by Phaidon Press as an international edition and a French edition. OUR WORLD is a large format globe shaped novelty board book which opens up to form a 360- degree globe. The book was named one of Parents magazine’s top books of 2020, was included in the Washington Post’s 2020 holiday gift guide. A second title in the “A First Book” series is in production now and will release in 2022.
 
Sue's other books include ALL EXCEPT AXLE (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster) and the Tip and Tucker early reader series (Sleeping Bear Press), co-authored with Liberty,, Missouri, author Ann Ingalls. 
 
Sue is passionate about the importance of books for children. She is a long-time volunteer with Lead to Read KC, a program that matches adults with first or second graders for weekly reading sessions in urban schools. She also serves as a volunteer author for the Church of the Resurrection’s education ministry and does author visits to partner schools throughout the city. She also enjoys doing author visits at libraries, schools, and bookstores around the country, in person or online. She is active in the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and served as regional advisor for Kansas and Missouri.
 
Sue also loves sharing books with her three grandchildren, who live nearby. For more information on Sue and her books, check out Sue’s website at suegallion.com. Sue has lists of favorite books for kids on her Goodreads page. Follow her on Twitter @SueLGallion, on Instagram as @suelowellgallion, or on Facebook as Sue Lowell Gallion.
 

Kris Polansky
Poetry Grades 3-4 and Grades 5-6
 
Kristine A. Polansky wrote puppet plays and some poetry as a child but her dream was to write and publish 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 and obtaining a law degree. Wanting a creative outlet but pressed for time while practicing law, she started writing poems. She experiments with different poetic forms and studies how content and form shape each other. Four of her poems were published in Tallgrass Voices edited by Gary Lechliter. Her poem, “Turning Points” won the 2016 Martin Luther King, Jr. Art and Writing Contest, adult division, Manhattan, Kansas. She has received numerous awards from KAC for her poetry and was named KAC Poet of the Year twice, most recently October 2020.  
 
Roy Beckemeyer
Poetry Grades 7-8 and 9-12
 
Roy Beckemeyer is a past-President of the Kansas Authors Club and was KAC Poet of the Year for a number of years. He has four books of poetry published and his poems appear in poetry anthologies as well as in print and online poetry and literary publications. He is a retired engineer and scientific journal editor and has studied fossil insects for over 20 years.
 
Krista Reed
Fiction Grades 3-4 and Grades 5-6
 
Krista Reed graduated from Pittsburg State University with a degree in Elementary Education,  and went on to receive her Master's Degree in Education from Baker University.  She has more than 25 years of experience teaching grades 2-8.  Her passion is watching children develop to their fullest potential, both  educationally and emotionally.  In her free time, she enjoys camping, reading, and spending time with her family.  Her newest title as "Gammy" is most rewarding and cherished.
 
 
Curtis Becker
Fiction Grades 7-8 and 9-12
 
Curtis Becker is a teacher, editor, and publisher living in Topeka, KS. His work has appeared in anthologies, literary journals, and magazines. He has presented on writing and teaching at academic conferences and to small groups. Becker’s book, He Watched and Took Note, was released in 2018. An educator for over fifteen years, Becker currently teaches at Holton Middle School in Holton, KS. He sponsors the yearbook and coaches scholars bowl at HMS. Additionally, he coaches debate and forensics at Holton High School. Becker earned a Bachelors and Masters in English and Creative Writing and holds professional licensure in Kansas, highly qualified in English Language Arts and Speech Communications.
 
 
Robin Clasen Wunderlich
Non-Fiction Grades 3-4 and 5-6
 
Robin Clasen Wunderlich is the editor and publisher of the Eureka Herald and President of the Kansas Press Association Board of Directors.  Robin is the daughter of the late Dick and Rachel Clasen. Dick Clasen was a KPA president and member of the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame, as was his father, George H. Clasen II.  Robin and her husband, Wes have two children and live south of Eureka, Kansas.
 
 
Anna Curry
Non-Fiction Grades 7-8 and Grades 9-12
 
Anna Curry is a mother of four busy children on a ranch in east central Kansas.  She enjoys sharing stories about her children and their rural life on her blog as a way to not only preserve cherished memories but also advocate for agriculture.  Anna has always enjoyed writing as a creative outlet as well as woodworking.  She obtained her bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University and master’s from Texas A&M. 

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When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, many Kansas businesses were slammed with mandatory closures. Libraries and bookstores scrambled to find ways to continue to serve readers and stay afloat and Kansas authors have felt the effects. The panelists will let us in on their innovative business pivots and tell us how their new operating procedures will affect authors and how we can help them as they continue to help us.

Topeka Shawnee County Public Library – Thad Hartman
Topeka Shawnee County Public Library is not just a place for books. It’s a local cultural center with its Alice C. Sabatini Art Gallery, its Millenium Café, Chandler Booktique and numerous exhibits and special events. The beautiful facility has free meeting rooms and before the pandemic, District 1 members met upstairs in one of them, after grabbing a bite to eat at the café.
During the pandemic the library transitioned to new services that included patron book pickups and even local deliveries. Interim Chief Executive Director Thad Hartman will be talking to convention viewers about how the library is being positioned for the future and about its relationship with local authors. He is responsible for leading the library in achieving its mission of sparking curiosity and connecting our community through literacy and learning.
Thad began his career as a shelving assistant at the library in 1993 and has worked in a variety of positions since then. He has led numerous projects throughout his career, including the implementation of the Library @ Work program, community center computer labs, and the facilities master plan.
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As a lifelong Topekan, Thad developed his love of the library by checking out Choose Your Own Adventure books, sports biographies, and books about bigfoot. Thad’s proudest moments at the library include being a member of the 2016 Library of the Year, being named an American Library Association Emerging Leader in 2006, and once managing the library softball team to a 1-11 record.​

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Are you looking for some hope for the future? A little dose of good to restore your faith in humanity?

Each year, Kansas Authors Club hosts a writing contest for youth. These entries, representing young writers third through twelfth grade, are a delightful look into the hearts and minds of today's youth.

"I am always struck by these essays. Kids tend to write a little bolder than adults. They have fun with the fantastical, and they make some seriously profound observations about the serious. Putting together this collection of essays, poems, and stories is a highlight of my year."
                                         Tracy Million Simmons
                                         2021 VP, & Youth Contest
                                         Book Project Volunteer
                                         (many years running)

Each child published in the book gets a free copy courtesy of Mennonite Press, our contest sponsor. Donations for the extra copies go to support Kansas Authors Club Youth Programs.