Category: Coffin Memorial Book Award

Important: Book Awards Guidelines for 2025 Updated

1/10/2025

To all members who have published a book June 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024. Please carefully review our updated consolidated Book Award Guidelines before entering a 2025 book contest. Significant changes have taken place.

Beginning in 2025, we will add an announcement of three finalists per contest category prior to the announcement of the winner at our fall gathering in October. Eligible books, for 2025 alone, will include an expanded window of eligibility that will include books that would have been considered eligible per our previous guidelines. Beginning in 2026, the book awards will be for books with a 1st publication date in the previous year only.

Our goal is to elevate the status of the Kansas Authors Club Book Awards, and to recognize as much fine writing from the state of Kansas as possible with these changes.

Read Now: Consolidated Book Awards Guidelines

Published Book Awards
Eight Categories
Cash Awards

For the 2025 Award Year

Submissions Accepted: NOW through

March 1, 2025 (encouraged), June 15 (final)

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2024 Coffin Award for Nonfiction

10/26/2024

Three Lost Worlds

by Jim Gilkeson

"Gilkeson tells the story of his fascinating journey from San Francisco to Germany and the Netherlands with humor. This is a book you can’t put down. I enjoyed every word."

-Judge Dillion O’Keefe, history professor at Emporia State University

Three Lost Worlds

Jim Gilkeson and Lindsey Bartlett

The J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award was established by Mrs. Bertha Coffin to honor the memory of her husband, a long-time member and officer of KAC, after his death on September 6, 1978. The J. Donald Coffin Award is intended to honor the best published book written by a member of Kansas Authors Club, excluding Kansas history, Kansas memoir, poetry, and children’s books, which have their own contests. Beginning in 2022, this contest provides two awards, one in fiction and one in nonfiction.

2024 Coffin Award for Fiction

10/26/2024

Our Mothers' Ghosts

by Marilyn Hope Lake

"This is a novella of linked stories about the complex, but loving, nature of women’s relationships with their mothers, daughters, aunts, and nieces. The protagonists (Boots, Helen, Sis, and Megan) are flawed, but compelling, doing their best to survive in the 20th century male dominated society. Days later I found myself still thinking about these women and their lives and triggering my own memories of the complicated but important relationships with other women in my own life. The writing is accessible and thought-provoking."
-Judge Michelle Zumbrum

Marilyn Hope Lake joins us via Zoom (top right projection image) for the 2024 Book Awards, with Tracy Million Simmons & Lindsey Bartlett.

Our Mothers' Ghosts

J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award Winners Housed at Council Grove Public Library

8/29/2024

2023 Coffin Book Award winners were donated to the Council Grove Public Library. The winner in fiction was Thirst, by K.L. Barron. The winner in nonfiction was Jigsaw Puzzling: Essays in a Time of Pestilence, by Denise Low.

The J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award was established by Mrs. Bertha Coffin to honor the memory of her husband, a long-time member and officer of KAC, after his death on September 6, 1978. The J. Donald Coffin Award is intended to honor the best published book written by a member of Kansas Authors Club, excluding Kansas history, Kansas memoir, poetry, and children’s books, which have their own contests. Since 2022, this contest provides two awards, one in fiction and one in nonfiction. The collection of Coffin Award winning books is housed at the Council Grove Public Library. The books are available to the public for circulation.

2023 Coffin Memorial Book Award for Nonfiction - Jigsaw Puzzling, by Denise Low

10/14/2023

Order Jigsaw Puzzling

Jigsaw Puzzling: Essays in a Time of Pestilence

Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2007-09, won a Red Mountain Press Award for Shadow Light: Poems. Other publications are The Turtle’s Beating Heart: One Family’s Story of Lenape Survival (University of Nebraska Press); Jigsaw Puzzling: Essays (Meadowlark); Wing (Red Mountain); and Casino Bestiary (Spartan). Forthcoming is House of Grace, House of Blood, docu-poetry from the University of Arizona Press, Suntracks series. She teaches for Baker University’s School of Professional and Graduate Studies. Low is a founding board member of Indigenous Nations Poets, former board president of AWP, and literary co-director of The 222 arts organization. At Haskell Indian Nations University she founded the creative writing program. She lives in California’s Sonoma County, homeland of Pomo people. www.deniselow.net

Learn More - Coffin Memorial Book Award

Judge: Andy Farkas, Washburn University professor. Andy teaches beginning and advanced fiction writing and advanced college writing and holds a BA from Kent State, a MA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and a MA from the University of Alabama. He holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Andy is the author of a novel, The Big Red Herring (KERNPUNKT Press 2019) and two collections of short fiction, Self-Titled Debut (Subito Press 2009) and Sunsphere (BlazeVOX [books] 2019). His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, North American Review, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. He has been nominated six times for a Pushcart Prize, with one Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XXXV and one Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2013. His novel was a finalist for the 2019 Big Other Fiction Award, a finalist for the 2019 Foreword INDIES humor award, and was on the Entropy Magazine Best Fiction Books of 2019 list. He is also the fiction editor for The Rupture (the re-brand of The Collagist).

2023 Coffin Memorial Book Award for Fiction - Thirst, by K.L. Barron

10/14/2023

K.L. Barron
Member from Alma, Kansas

Order Thirst

K.L. Barron is a writer of place: poetry and prose. Her prize-winning fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction has been published in New Letters, The Bennington Review, Little Balkans Review, terrain.org, ChickenBones (Library of Congress), among others, and in several anthologies. She earned an MFA from Bennington in 2005 and taught writing and literature at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas for nearly 20 years. She lives and writes in the Flint Hills.
Her debut novel Thirst came out in November 2022 from Sea Crow Press.

Learn More - Coffin Memorial Book Award

2022 Coffin Memorial Fiction Book Award - Honorable Mention

11/12/2022

J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial
Fiction Book Award

Honorable Mention to
We the House
by Warren Ashworth and Susan Kander

Note from Judge Strnad:
I was asked to evaluate the Science Fiction and Fantasy books that were submitted for the J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Award for Fiction. I judged the books according to my experiences in reading many other books in the science fiction/fantasy genre and many of the sub genres. The titles given to me from which I chose were in the sub-genres of fantasy, ghost story, mythological high fantasy, techno thriller, and space opera. From these I selected We the House by Warren Ashworth and Susan Kander as the winner.

“We the House” tells the story of a family by way of the house and, specifically, a portrait that is located in the dining room and watches the comings and goings of the family members in the course of the one hundred plus years it has hung in that one spot. The subject of the portrait, mistakenly identified as Mrs. Speale, is an interlocutor of the first stripe. She is observant and understanding, even while she keeps a sharp eye on the people who occupy the house. As an interlocutor she interprets and filters what is said and done by the various family members down through the years. Mrs. Speale is full of witty repartee, loving acceptance of humanity, and educated explanations that keep the “house,” and the reader, engaged and on their toes. Mrs. Speale, the house, and the inhabitants come to life in the hands of these authors. The novel could have become convoluted and overstuffed, but the authors created a cozy warm place, not without its tragedies, that draws the reader in by using spare text along with a tricky literary device to tell a conventional story in an unconventional way.

Benita Strnad
2022 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial
Fiction Book Co-Judge

Benita Strnad has thirty years of experience in McLure Education Library at the University of Alabama as first, the Curriculum Materials Librarian and then as Education Reference Librarian. She holds the academic rank of Associate Professor. She has served on numerous American Library Association committees as a member and chair and is the author of several publications. Prior to her career as an academic librarian she served as a K-12 librarian in rural Kansas. She holds a Master’s of Library Science from Emporia State University, a Master’s in Education from Fort Hays State University and a Bachelor’s degree in Education from Kansas State University.

2022 Coffin Memorial Fiction Book Award Winner

11/10/2022

J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial
Fiction Book Award

Opulence Kansas
by Julie Stielstra

Note from Judge Varnadore:
I have been very impressed with the exceptionally high quality of the work represented by this year’s authors across such different genres as crime fiction, historical fiction, and young adult fiction. This has made the job of judging this year’s winner quite a task but also a genuine pleasure. As the novels represented so many different genres, my approach was to evaluate each work according to the conventions of those genres as well as execution of craft and finally, readability. Based on these criteria, I am pleased to select Opulence Kansas by Julie Stielstra as my choice for the J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Award for Fiction.

Stielstra’s 15-year-old protagonist Kate, reeling from the suicide of her father and the subsequent investigation into his shady financial dealings, leaves her high-rise Chicago condo for rural Kansas, to stay with her father’s estranged older brother and his wife. This relocation seems to be the respite Kate needs from the chaos back in Chicago and she settles in well, observing her new surrounds through the lens of her burgeoning talent for photography. As her relationship with her newfound family blossoms and she becomes more deeply embedded in the small-town community, she begins to appreciate a slower pace and living close to the land. Katie also meets Travis, a young man with a troubled past, who seems initially stagnate and destined to see life pass him by; however, Kate and Travis, with the help of her family and the local community, begin to heal their personal traumas and find redemption from the sins of their fathers.

Stielstra writes with humor and compassion, and her characters are subtle and layered. The tone of the work manages to be uplifting but never sentimental or saccharine. The prose is witty and energetic, and the world she creates is beautifully observed. In Stielstra’s capable hands, rural Kansas itself takes on a vivid character of its own.

Heather Varnadore
2022 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial
Fiction Book Co-Judge

Heather Varnadore was born and raised in Atlanta but currently lives in the Flint Hills of Kansas with her family. She received her M.A. in English from Kansas State University in 2008 and her M.F.A. in fiction writing from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2012. She has previously taught at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and currently teaches at Kansas State University. She is the recipient of the Seaton Fellowship for Creative Writing, the Umass MFA Fellowship for Poets and Writers, the Cara Parravani Memorial Award in Fiction, the Delaney Fellowship for Fiction and multiple teaching awards. She is currently finishing work on a novel.

Coffin Memorial Book Award Winners

Note from Contest Manager:
Due to the number and heft of this year’s fiction entries, I divided them between two co-judges. Judge Varnadore and Judge Strnad both identified contenders for the award from the books they read. Tie-breaker judge Linda Knupp made the final decision. After 20 years of service, Knupp retired a year ago as director of the Manhattan Public Library and the North Central Kansas Library System. She remains active with the state-wide Friends of Kansas Libraries (FOKL) and urges all of you to join your local library’s Friends group as well as groups like the Kansas Authors Club. Judge Knupp was impressed with the clear narrative structure of Opulence Kansas, which takes the main character through a summer of changes and revelations after the tragic death of her father. “Thoughtful and resilient characters deal with a number of challenges during this time without losing their compassion for others, hope for the future, and their appreciation for the small rural community of Opulence.” According to Judge Knupp, author Julie Stielstra “certainly has a future in the wide field of YA literature.”

2022 Coffin Memorial Nonfiction Book Award

11/3/2022

Note from the Judge:
Arguably, nonfiction books are more divergent than any other type of writing. The following questions provide a practical approach for judging such books: (1) Would a person interested in the subject pull the book off the shelf? (2) Would they want to look inside? (3) Would they be tempted to explore the book further? (4) If they read the book, would they find accurate, up-to-date facts and would their expectations otherwise be met? (5) Does the book provide a bonus—something unexpectedly satisfying?

If you are a cat-lover, you likely would pull A Cat Named Fatima by James Kenyon DVM from a shelf. Being a sensitive and intelligent person (as are most cat-lovers), you would be attracted to the cover art of the book—the soft, warm colors in the picture of a young girl watching a cat; the playfulness of the cat paws worked into the title; the subtitle, “Tales of 23 Cats & the People Who Loved Them;” and, on the back cover, proof the book is, indeed, written by a “DVM”—a veterinarian who obviously loves cats. Open the book, skim a few pages and be prepared to want to explore the book further. As you read, your initial impressions will be confirmed.

However, James Kenyon has not written an ordinary cute cat book. Each cat is introduced with an ode containing hints of what will follow. Kenyon slips in facts about cats and gives his readers insight into how veterinarians approach medical issues. Throughout the book he shows compassion for pets and pet owners and respect for his readers’ intelligence and their ability to handle technical terms and concepts. The cartoon-like illustrations of artist Thomas Marple add to the book’s charm. This, indeed, is a book filled with unexpectedly satisfying bonuses.

Cecilia Harris
2022 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial
Nonfiction Book Judge

Cecilia Harris resides in the historic town of Abilene where she has been a professional freelance writer for over 30 years, specializing in travel writing for the Kansas Tourism Division and other travel industry entities. In KANSAS! magazine alone, she has written over 250 articles featuring over 700 locations in the state. She also has written both state and area visitors guides, blogs about Kansas cuisine, arts, culture and heritage and Abilene attractions and events, online articles, and two books, Historic Homes of Abilene and Abilene’s Carousel. Also using her services have been the President Dwight D. Eisenhower Foundation, Meredith Corporation, Madden Media, the Kansas I-70 Association, the Kansas Society of Association Executives, and 10 regional magazines.

James Kenyon accepts the Coffin Memorial Nonfiction Book Award from Kristine Polansky

Coffin Memorial Book Award Winners

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

2021 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award

10/9/2021

They Met at Wounded Knee: The Eastman's Story
by Gretchen Cassel Eick

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.

Three Lost Worlds

Our Mothers' Ghosts

They Met at Wounded Knee: The Eastman's Storyby Gretchen Cassel Eick

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They Met at Wounded Knee: The Eastman's Story
by Gretchen Cassel Eick