Category: Gretchen Eick

Member News: Gretchen Eick, D5

9/6/2023

Sept. 16, 2023 Wichita's Chester I Lewis Park will be dedicated. It honors the Black lawyer who was nationally known for his work to bring full enforcement of the 14th Amendment to Kansas and the nation.

Gretchen Eick wrote the information accessed via QR codes on each of the beautiful tall glass panels painted with images of Lewis' work for access to equal public accommodations, housing, swimming pools, education, and employment. The paintings on glass are the work of artist Ellamonique Bauccus. Visit the park with her work and Gretchen's background information when you are in Wichita and bring the whole family. Lewis was a great and courageous man about whom all Kansans should know.

Chester I. Lewis Reflection Square Park

Writers in Community: Gretchen Eick

6/10/2023

Gretchen Eick was one of the writers featured at the Wichita Library's writers reading their work event June 3. She read her 6 minute play, "Siblings," which placed second in last year's playwriting contest, a play for congregations or clubs or groups to use to start discussion of the problem of alienation between family or friends due to differences.

Writers in the Community is a Kansas Authors Club program that highlights member educational and outreach efforts in our communities.

Click Here to Learn More and Submit Your Own News

Writers in Community: Gretchen Eick

5/4/2023

a note from D5 member, Gretchen Eick:

In March I worked with ArtsPartners Wichita to help five authors develop books for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders that would help reluctant readers enter the story and keep reading. Each book was related to one or more of the indicators of a healthy community. The authors were exceptional and the process quite a delight. Now their books are being worked on by local artists who are doing the illustrations in collaboration with the authors. What a delight it was to do this work of writing in the community!

D5 Authors Read at Book Launch

11/28/2022

Featuring Dr. Reginald Jarrett and Dr. Gretchen Eick

The Peace Committee will host a book launch on Thursday, December 1, featuring two 2022 books by local authors that center on race.

Thursday at 7 p.m. at 655 S. Lorraine, at the Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church in the sanctuary.

Dr. Reginald Jarrett's book 31 Days [Nights]: Memoir of Living Black in America is a series of short essays about his life here in Wichita and across the U.S. A truth-telling book of interpersonal encounters among various ethnicities of Americans told by a gifted communicator, 31 Days will surprise readers and enlarge their understanding of how race functions in America. Jarrell is a professor at Southwestern University and a lawyer, pastor, and TV journalist who has lived across the U.S. but grew up in Wichita. This is his second book.

Dr. Gretchen Eick's newest novel, Dark Crossings, takes place in 2019. An interracial family with two teens living in Evanston, IL, north of Chicago is devastated when a family member is murdered. The difficult journey through the survivors' grief nearly breaks them. The discovery through a DNA test of unknown family members connected to the Philadelphia police murder of 12 Black people on May 13, 1985, helps them reconstruct their lives. Eick is a professor of history emerita and teaches at WSU's Lifelong Learning program. This is her eighth book. The authors will read excerpts and discuss their books and what each adds to our knowledge of the role of "race" in today's U.S.

2022 Convention: Gretchen Eick Service Award

11/19/2022

Gretchen Eick
Merit Award for Service to the Club
October 22, 2022

Nominated by Tracy Million Simmons, D2 (Emporia)

Gretchen Eick is an accomplished author, publisher, and educator. She joined our organization in 2016.

Gretchen has served District 5 as vice president and program manager. If you are curious, take a look at the terrific lineup of 2022 speakers on the D5 portion of our website.

Gretchen service on the Committee to Restructure Kansas Authors Club, taking time out of a busy writing schedule to learn more about our organization. Gretchen's questions often brought about immediate improvement. Our website features several enhancements and/or clarifications that came about via discussions with Gretchen.

I nominate Gretchen Eick for a merit award in service to Kansas Authors Club.

-Tracy Million Simmons, D2 Member (Emporia)

2022 Convention: Gretchen Eick Service Award

11/12/2022

Gretchen Eick
Merit Award for Service to the Club
October 22, 2022

Nominated by Tracy Million Simmons

Gretchen Eick is an accomplished author, publisher, and educator. She joined our organization in 2016.

Gretchen has served District 5 as vice president and program manager. If you are curious, take a look at the terrific line-up of speakers in 2022 on the D5 portion of the website. Gretchen served on the committee to restructure Kansas Authors Club, taking time out of a busy writing schedule to learn more about our organization and examine our processes and procedures. Gretchen's questions alone often brought about immediate improvements. Our website features several enhancements and/or clarifications that came about via discussions with Gretchen.

I nominate Gretchen Eick for a merit award in service to the Kansas Authors Club.

-Tracy Million Simmons, D2 member (Emporia)

News from Blue Cedar Press

10/6/2022

Wichita's indie press, Blue Cedar Press, has published 5 books in 2022, 4 by Kansas authors.
Order from bluecedarpress.com, B&N online, or your favorite bookstore.

31 Days (Nights): Memoir of Living Black in America by Reginald D. Jarrell (Jarrell’s work as a TV and print news reporter and columnist, a university assistant professor, an attorney, and a janitor—and his experiences living across the Midwest, in California, D.C., and Mississippi inform his short, memorable essays.)
ISBN: 978-1-7369112-7-3 (paper)
ISBN: 978-1-7369112-8-0 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022930901

Dark Crossings, a novel by Gretchen Eick (Prose Writer of 2021 for the Kansas Authors Club, author of 2 histories and 5 novels)--2nd in her Crossings series
Richard and Keisha by 2019 are parents of two teens, professors living happily together until everything changes with an act of random violence, plunging their family into disfunction and despair. Extended family may not be enough to pull them through their grief. But DNA discovery of another branch of the family tree may at least distract them and lead them into the darkness of Philadelphia's attack on the MOVE community and another family murder. Aug. '22
ISBN: 978-1-958728-01-7 (paper) $20
ISBN: 978-1-958728-00-0 (ebook) $6.99
Library of Congress LCCN: 2022940932

Maybe Crossings, a novel by Gretchen Eick (Prose Writer of 2021 for the Kansas Authors Club, author of 2 histories and 5 novels)--1st in her Crossings series--2nd edition with a study guide
Black and white young people meet in Mississippi in the Freedom Summer of 1964 to register voters and form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party forging relationships that resume in 2003 through a series of coincidences that bring them and their children together. A novel about families lost and found, social change fought for and glimpsed, and generational differences that test understandings of commitment. Sept. '22
ISBN: 9781958728024 (paper) $18
ISBN: 978-1-958728-05-5 (epub) $5.99
LCCN: 2022945367

One-Match Fire, a novel by Paul Lamb (Paul Lamb's stories have appeared in dozens of literary magazines, including The Adroit Journal, Aethlon, Foliate Oak, MOON Magazine, Halfway Down the Stairs, Magnolia Review (nominated for a Pushcart Prize), Little Patuxent Review, Platte Valley Review, and others.) For David the cabin evoked memories of his father. For his son it was family and sanctuary. All that was wrong was fixable when they were at the cabin. But would this weekend change everything? A story of fathers and sons and the work of loving despite profound differences.) Oct. '22
ISBN: 978-1-958728-04-8 (paper) $20
ISBN: 978-1-958728-03-1 (ebook) $6.99
LCCN: 2022945368

Why Does She Always Talk About Her Husband? poems by David Romanda (David Romanda is the author of I’m Sick of Pale Blue Skies, a limited-edition chapbook, and the broken bird feeder, a full collection. His work has been included in Best Canadian Poetry and published in 27 journals. Romanda lives in Kawasaki City, Japan.) This is minimalist poetry at its finest—quick, punchy, and deceptively spare. These are offbeat rebel-playful poems that beg to be read aloud and shared with others.) Coming Nov. '22
ISBN: 978-1-958728-06-2 (paper) $10
ISBN: 978-1-958728-07-9 (ebook) $4.99
LCCN: 2022947139

2022 Convention Presenter: Gretchen Eick

9/30/2022

Countering Censorship by Writing

Recently we’ve seen a movement to suppress what books schools and libraries readers can read. Books have been burned in Tennessee and a PEN study documented 1,145 unique book titles banned in 86 school districts in 26 states between July 2021 and April 2022. Kansas is among the states where such book bans have been imposed by school districts. There have been 713 instances of censorship in Texas, 456 bans in Pennsylvania, and 204 in Florida.

As writers, how do we respond to these violations of our First Amendment rights?

Gretchen Eick has taken up controversial issues in her two scholarly histories/biographies and five novels. She is committed to using the power of her pen (keyboard?) to fight this suppression. She encourages writers to do the same by including in their stories characters of diverse races, nationalities, religions, sexual identification, and classes, and in their historical fiction, by including what what was happening to people living with those different identities. How do you do that?

Gretchen Eick is a professor of history emerita who now teaches in Wichita State’s Lifelong Learning program. She taught 20 years at Friends University and in Latvia and Bosnia and Herzegovina thanks to Fulbright Fellowships.

Gretchen is scheduled to present at 10:15am-11:00am on Saturday, October 22.

PRESENTATION BLOCK 1 – EXPANDING VIEWS AND PERSPECTIVES

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

Member News: Gretchen Eick, D5

Writers in Community: Gretchen Eick

Writers in Community: Gretchen Eick

D5 Authors Read at Book Launch

2022 Convention: Gretchen Eick Service Award

2022 Convention: Gretchen Eick Service Award

News from Blue Cedar Press

2022 Convention Presenter: Gretchen Eick

Countering Censorship by Writing

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

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