Category: Author Talk

Save the Date: Author Talk with Adelaide Bauman, August 9 at 7:00 pm

7/26/2022

“Zara the Zebu: My Quest to Self-Publish a Whimsical, Instructive, and Inspiring Children's Book”

Join 2021 Children's Book Award Winner, Adelaide Bauman, author of Zara the Zebu, who will review the entire process of creating, planning, writing, designing, and publishing an award-winning children's book.

"As a first time author with a very fresh perspective, I hope that my experience- from storyboarding, to finding and working with an illustrator, to the editing process and beyond, will offer you insights into possible avenues, hang-ups, and victories you may choose and experience when working to self-publish your own children's book, or perhaps inspire you to work with one of our great Kansas publishers instead. Either way, it is my hope that by sharing my experience, I can help another future author find their way to holding their very own book in their hands!"

--Adelaide Bauman, D3 member

You must register in advance to receive a link for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

"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 Kansas Authors Club Children's Book Award Judge
2021 Children’s Book Award JudgeMy 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 JudgeMy 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

June 14, 7:00pm - You are Invited: Author Talk by Lisa D. Stewart

6/6/2022

“Writing the Radical—Saying the World is Kind and Good.”

In 2012, Lisa Stewart rode 500 miles, alone, on her horse through Kansas and Missouri to fulfill a childhood dream. Lisa will speak about her notetaking and communications on the trip and how she handled writing about the love and kindness she encountered without sounding saccharine or appearing to promote a message. She will speak about why and how she made such a trip, the nature of horses, what she personally gained from the experience, and what she hopes others will learn about the beauty and kindness of the world.

Lisa was the winner of our 2021 "It Looks Like a Million" Book Design Award.

2021 Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award for books published by Kansas City area writers

2021 High Plains Book Award Finalist

At 54, Lisa Stewart set out to regain the fearless girl she once had been, riding her horse, Chief, 500 miles home. Hot, homeless, and horseback, she snapped back into every original cell. On an extraordinary homegoing from Kansas City to Bates and Vernon Counties in Missouri, Lisa exhausted herself, faced her past, trusted strangers, and stayed in the middle of her frightened horse to document modern rural America, the people, animals, and land.

Praise:
“Lisa Stewart’s The Big Quiet charts a path for all women. It’s a path at once dangerous and thrilling and a path she had started down and backed out of since childhood. The resulting narrative recounts a journey not only to a point on the map but to a whole and liberated self. Stewart is finally free to trust herself and others, to survive by her wits and with the help of kind strangers of which there are still many. This is a delicious fantasy of a journey most of us deny ourselves and one taken on the back of a horse whose simultaneously terrified and fiercely loyal personality unfurls before us as the richest of characters’ personalities do—on the way from Point A to Point B.”
—Kelly Barth, author of My Almost Certainly Real Imaginary Jesus
“This is a book of gratitude of the highest order. Stewart, a 54-year-old woman riding alone on a high-strung, sure-footed horse across the gravel grid of rural America, is grateful each night for a place to pitch a tent and pasture her horse. But her journey, past and present, is as much about the people she meets, many of whom know how to study a horse and to trust its rider—these strangers are glad to offer water and their own stories, which, like Stewarts’, churn with old wounds, hard work, family, and an abiding trust in open land. This compelling meditation reminds us that every step, fall, and missed road leads the rider home.”

—Gary Dop, author of Father, Child, Water, MFA Program Director at Randolph College
“This book is more than a log of an unusual (for this day and age) solitary horseback journey; it is also a perceptive examination of the author’s own life—a well-written introspective journey of self-discovery.”

—James F. Hoy, author of Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales of the Tallgrass Prairie, Chair of Emporia State University’s English Department and professor, past president of the Kansas Historical Society
“After riding more than 3,000 miles across the United States in the early 1980s, Stewart helped launch one of that country’s most successful saddle companies. Yet Lisa Stewart is no salesman, eager to sell a saddle to gain a commission. She is a long rider who made mistakes and learned by them. She faced obstacles and overcame them. She was presented with ancient riddles and discovered solutions.”

—CuChullaine O’Reilly, FRGS, Founding Member of The Long Riders’ Guild
A unique and inherently fascinating memoir, "The Big Quiet: One Woman's Horseback Ride Home" will prove to be an immediately welcome and enduringly popular addition to both community and college/university library Contemporary American Biography collections. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of all dedicated horse lovers and dedicated travelogue fans that "The Big Quiet: One Woman's Horseback Ride Home" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

—Helen Dumont, Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

June Author Talk: Lisa D. Stewart

5/22/2022

Save the Date!

For our next statewide Author Talk we will be hosting Lisa D. Stewart, the winner of the 2021 "It Looks Like a Million" Book Design Award.

Tuesday, June 14, 2022
7:00 pm via Zoom

You must register in advance to attend this meeting. The Zoom link will be sent upon registration. We will send you a reminder link closer to the day.

The Big Quiet, by Lisa D. Stewart

In 2012, Lisa Stewart rode 500 miles, alone, on her horse through Kansas and Missouri to fulfill a childhood dream. Lisa will speak about her notetaking and communications on the trip and how she handled writing about the love and kindness she encountered without sounding saccharine or appearing to promote a message. She will speak about why and how she made such a trip, the nature of horses, what she personally gained from the experience, and what she hopes others will learn about the beauty and kindness of the world.

You are Invited: April 12 Author Talk by Janice Northerns (Zoom - Advance Registration Required)

4/8/2022

Finding Both Anchor and Sail
through Ekphrastic Writing

Whether you are new to ekphrasis or an old hand at it, the practice can offer both a concrete anchor to start a piece as well as a sail to push your writing in a new direction. Janice Northerns will read several ekphrastic poems from her award-winning collection Some Electric Hum and share tips to help you take ekphrastic writing to the next level. The discussion will be geared toward prose writers as well as poets.

Optional: Those who plan to attend are invited to write ahead of time a poem or flash prose piece responding to the painting “Four Sunflowers Gone to Seed” by Vincent Van Gogh (1887). You can view the painting at this museum link:
https://krollermuller.nl/en/vincent-van-gogh-four-sunflowers-gone-to-seed-1

Join us via Zoom on Tuesday, April 12, 7:00pm

IMPORTANT:
You must register in advance to attend this meeting.

Click here to Register

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Some Electric Hum is available from all major online retailers. See website for buy buttons:

Janice Northerns, of Liberal, is the author of Some Electric Hum, winner of the 2021 KAC Nelson Poetry Book Award, the KU Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award, and a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. The author grew up on a farm in rural West Texas and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas Tech University, where she received the Robert S. Newton Award for Creative Writing. Her work has been widely published in literary journals. Honors include a Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts residency, a Sewanee Writers’ Conference scholarship, and numerous awards for individual poems. Janice and her husband moved to Liberal in 1998, where she taught English at Seward County Community College before retiring in 2019 to write full-time. The landscapes and people of West Texas and southwest Kansas are a steady source of inspiration for her poetry.

Book Description:
“Some Electric Hum reads … like a treatise on the ways communities are crafted by wanting, having, and then letting go. … 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.”
— Dr. Sandra Cox, judge for the Nelson Poetry Book Award

www.janicenortherns.com

You are Invited to Attend: Author Talk, by Dr. Gretchen Eick

1/31/2022

Tuesday, February 8 at 7pm

Our next 2nd Tuesday Meeting, hosted by Districts 3 and 4 via Zoom, will be a talk by Dr. Gretchen Eick, winner of the 2021 Coffin Memorial Book Award.

Register in advance to receive a link to this meeting.

Wedding Imagination and Passion with Historical Investigation

About the Author:
Dr. Gretchen Eick has been in love with the world since 1962 when she traveled to west Africa to attend Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone for six months. Since then she has traveled to or lived in over forty countries, which shapes her interests and her writing of history, biography, political commentary, and fiction. As a late blooming academic, starting a PhD in her 50s, she combined her international interests with a passion for the history of the US, which she taught at Friends University in Wichita for twenty years before retiring to have more time to write. With her husband, the poet Michael Poage, she runs Blue Cedar Press and edits and publishes “new voices from the prairie and the planet.” Her experience working on Capitol Hill for fourteen years and researching, writing, and teaching history provide grist for her prodigious curiosity. She has written seven books, two of them prize-winners, and all but one written in the past eight years.

Eick’s published books include:
They Met at Wounded Knee: The Eastmans’ Story (University of Nevada Press, 2020)
The Set Up, 1984: Classified until 2064 (Blue Cedar Press, 2020)
The Death Project: An Anthology for These Times (Blue Cedar Press, 2020)
The Hard Verge, Britain 2025 (Amazon, 2019)
African Americans of Wichita (Arcadia, 2017)
Finding Duncan (Blue Cedar Press, 2015)
Maybe Crossings (Blue Cedar Press, 2015)
Herstories: Woman to Woman (Blue Cedar Press, 2014)
Dissent in Wichita: The Civil Rights Movement in the Midwest, 1954-72 (University of Illinois Press, 2001/2007)

View the Coffin Award Winners

Don't forget to register for our next Author Talk: Chuck Warner, author of Birds, Bones, and Beetles...

2/15/2021

The improbable career and Remarkable Legacy of University of Kansas Naturalist Charles D. Bunker

Recording Available for Viewing by Members - Click Here

University Press of Kansas has agreed to offer members of KAC a 30% discount on copies of Warner's book. Beginning today, this offer is good through March 31, 2021, and applies only to online purchases from University Press of Kansas using the Promo Code KAC30. (https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2773-8.html)

Winner:
2020 Martin Kansas History Book Award
&
2020 "Looks Like A Million" Design Award

“While reading Chuck Warner’s book, I felt myself being transported back in time and seeing life through the eyes of Charles Bunker. Birds, Bones, and Beetles tells the story of naturalist Charles Bunker's life from his early years in Illinois in the late 1800s through his long career at the University of Kansas. Much like Charles Bunker, the book itself is unassuming and down to earth. Warner takes care to not only reveal Bunker's strengths but also his flaws. Yet, the book is more than a biography. Warner ties Bunker into a larger world that include his relationships with his colleagues and family, developments within the University of Kansas, and the natural history of the state. This well written and well researched book is not only a treat to read but is a valuable contribution to the history of Kansas.”

-Thomas C. Percy, PhD, judge, 2020 Martin Kansas History Book Award

February Author Talk, Chuck Warner, winner of the 2020 Martin Kansas History Book Award

1/30/2021

February Author Talk: Chuck Warner

Birds, Bones, and Beetles: The Improbable Career and Remarkable Legacy of University of Kansas Naturalist Charles D. Bunker

Winner:
2020 Martin Kansas History Book Award
&
2020 "Looks Like A Million" Design Award

Tuesday, February 23, 7pm
Click here to register (must register to attend).
University Press of Kansas has agreed to offer members of KAC a 30% discount on copies of Warner's book. Beginning today, this offer is good through March 31, 2021, and applies only to online purchases from University Press of Kansas using the Promo Code KAC30. (https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2773-8.html)

“While reading Chuck Warner’s book, I felt myself being transported back in time and seeing life through the eyes of Charles Bunker. Birds, Bones, and Beetles tells the story of naturalist Charles Bunker's life from his early years in Illinois in the late 1800s through his long career at the University of Kansas. Much like Charles Bunker, the book itself is unassuming and down to earth. Warner takes care to not only reveal Bunker's strengths but also his flaws. Yet, the book is more than a biography. Warner ties Bunker into a larger world that include his relationships with his colleagues and family, developments within the University of Kansas, and the natural history of the state. This well written and well researched book is not only a treat to read but is a valuable contribution to the history of Kansas.”

-Thomas C. Percy, PhD, judge, 2020 Martin Kansas History Book Award

March Author Talk: Michael D. Graves

All Hallows' Shadows

Winner:
2020 J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award

Tuesday, March 23, 7pm
Click here to register (must register to attend).

"In All Hallows’ Shadows, Michael D. Graves serves up both homage and an original take on the hard-boiled detective genre. The mean streets of the novel are historic Wichita, Kansas, which Mr. Graves renders impeccably, edging in a history lesson with his mystery. Graves, an evident baseball fan, hits through the cycle of the genre’s tropes, but does so in a manner entirely his own, realizing a style entirely his own. Out of a field of strong competition, my choice for the J. Donald Coffin Book Award is Michael D. Graves’s All Hallows’ Shadows."

-William Sheldon, judge, 2020 J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award

April Author Talk: Ronda Miller

I Love the Children

Winner:
2020 Kansas Authors Club Childrens' Book Award

Tuesday, April 27, 7pm
Registration Link to Come (must register to attend).