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.

Three Kansas Authors Club members were named finalists in the 31st annual Midwest Book Awards. The awards program, which is organized by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association (MiPA), recognizes quality independent publishing in the Midwest.

Michael D. Graves, District 2, made the Fiction: Mystery/Thriller list with All Hallows' Shadows, the 3rd book of the Pete Stone, Private Investigator series.

Jerilynn Jones Henrikson, District 2, made the Fiction: Young Adult list with A Time for Tears.

Julie Stielstra, District 6, made the Fiction: Young Adult list with Opulence, Kansas.

All three titles are published by Meadowlark Press of Emporia, Kansas, owned by Tracy Million Simmons (D2). 

The 31st annual Midwest Book Awards was open to books published and copyrighted in 2020 in MiPA’s 12-state Midwestern region: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

This year’s competition garnered 241 entries in 35 categories, submitted by 74 independent publishers and judged by a panel of nearly one hundred librarians and booksellers from throughout the Midwest.

Historically, an awards gala is held in Minneapolis to announce the winners, but this year, as in 2020, winners will be announced and celebrated online, first in a Zoom webinar open to MiPA members and finalists, and shortly thereafter in a social media premiere that can be shared with friends and family. A period of book giveaways and winner highlights will accompany the social media premiere.

“This shift to celebrating online has enabled us to engage with a larger publishing community throughout the Midwest,” said Jennifer Baum, executive director of MiPA. “The number of entries received in 2020 grew by about 25% compared to the prior year, which can be attributed to our greater online presence.”

Following the conclusion of the gala celebrations, winners will be encouraged to participate in MiPA’s second season of the Virtual Reading Series, a limited series launched last year on MiPA’s YouTube channel.

Finalist books will also be for sale in MiPA’s affiliate shop on Bookshop.org, a website that shares proceeds with independent booksellers. Buyers can opt to select which independent store will receive the commission, or to leave it in a general pool to be distributed among independent booksellers.

​For a complete list of finalists, visit www.mipa.org/midwest-book-awards. Follow @MIPAMidwestBookAwards on Facebook for updates on the gala’s social media premiere and book giveaways.

The following Kansas Authors Club members had essays selected for publication in the first issue of 105: Meadowlark Reader, a Kansas journal of creative nonfiction. Issue #1, with the theme of "beginnings," is expected to be delivered to subscribers in early May, featuring 35 essays, including the following:

Gretchen Eick - D5
Marie Fletcher - D7
Beth Gulley - D2
Miriam Iwashige - D6
Nancy Julien Kopp - D4
Sandee Lee - D5
Don Marler - D5
Ruth Maus - D1
Julie Nischan - D1
Kevin Rabas - D2
Mark Scheel - D2
Julie Sellers - D4
Tyler Sheldon - D2
Julie Stielstra - D6
Barbara Waterman-Peters - D1
Jon Yenser - D7
Gloria Zachgo - D5
Ginger Zyskowski - D6

Cheryl Unruh (D2) of Quincy Press is the editor of the new journal, and Tracy Million Simmons (D2) of Meadowlark Press is the publisher. Readers are encouraged to subscribe before March 1 to take advantage of introductory pricing. 

For those interested in submitting essays for issue #2, the theme will be "Kansas Travel Stories" and they will begin collecting those submissions in May and June of 2021

See 105meadowlarkreader.com for complete details.

"When I finish a book, I try to select a word that encapsulates ending my reading experience—gratified, informed, indignant, breathless. The word I chose when I closed the book Opulence, Kansas by Julie Stielstra, after reading it in two sessions, was “hopeful.” Hopeful that, despite terrible tragedies and loss, people can recover and find joy in the world. Hopeful that there are uncles and aunts like Len and Maggie, waiting to love and restore value to teens who need them. Hopeful that the next generation will value relationships like Katie and Travis. And hopeful that self-centered, inconsiderate people can be transformed into mindful allies."
                    --Barbara Belford, Windy City Reviews

Read the entire review here.

Congratulations to D5 member, Gretchen Eick, and the following Kansas Authors Club members who were published in this anthology: Ronda Miller (D2), Jim Potter (D6), Mark McCormick (D5), Judy Keller Hatteberg (D5), Robert Dean (D5), Michael Poage (D5), Julie Baker Brinn (D7), Mike Graves (D2), Ruth Maus (D1), Julie Stielstra (D6), Mark Scheel (D2), Miriam Iwashige (D6), Najiyah Maxfield (D6), Janet Stotts (D1), and Diane Wahto (D5).

PRESS RELEASE
September 20, 2020

The Death Project: An Anthology for These Times is now in print and available to order at your favorite bookstore and Amazon.

This book is a 205 page anthology of stories, poems, mini memoirs, and factual pieces about the various ways we lose loved ones to death and how we grieve and heal. It is a collaboration by 36 writers from across the US, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Britain, Turkey, etc. who contributed their writing to help others suffering from grief or anticipation of grief. It is intended to expand readers' thinking, feeling, and imagining about this universal, often-hidden experience brought relentlessly to the world's consciousness in 2020.

The writers are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Bah'ais, atheists, and New Age, and of different races and ethnicities. Some write of family loss including suicide, others of war or devastating illness, of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter. Others share rituals that helped them recover.

Published by Blue Cedar Press (Wichita, KS) and edited by Dr. Gretchen Eick and Cora Poage, proceeds from the sales of The Death Project after the cost of publication and shipping will go to an assortment of international organizations fighting COVID-19. $12 paperback, $7 ebook (epub and Kindle).

​For more information contact:
Gretchen Eick, 316-682-8818
eickgc@gmail.com

If you have news of writing events that would be of interest to all Kansas Authors Club members, or if you are a member (dues current) who would like to announce an achievement, please submit your news via this form. ​

Chicago Gold Coast Meets Small-Town Kansas in New Youth Novel Opulence, Kansas, by Julie Stielstra (D6 member)

[Emporia, Kansas, June 2020]  Daughter of privilege, private-school student Katie Myrdal’s world is rocked when her finance-wizard father is found dead in his Porsche—a suicide. There’s more wreckage to clean up than she could have imagined. Katie escapes to the Kansas farmstead of her barely-known aunt and uncle near the small town of Opulence. Plummeting from a high-rise, big city condo to a tree-shrouded, yellow house on the prairie, Katie discovers other kinds of richness—the wealth of friendship, hidden gifts, tragic secrets, and how the balm of time will help her turn her life in a new direction.

What people are saying about Opulence, Kansas: 

"Julie Stielstra captured the essence of an adolescent from Chicago who visits a small Kansas community ... Stielstra explores the dynamic and complicated connections among people ... Opulence is complete with heartache, romance, conflict, and resolution. Unpredictable events exhilarate the reader with delightful developments."
--Carmaine Ternes, Librarian, Author, Presenter, and Book Reviewer

"Opulence, Kansas has good tension and keeps the reader turning the pages. It’s a heartwarming book of a girl who learns to look for opportunities in the world around her and begins to create a life of her own."
--Cheryl Unruh, Flyover People Essayist and Kansas Book Enthusiast 

Julie Stielstra’s short fiction has appeared in a dozen literary journals and collections. Her historical novel, Pilgrim, was published by Minerva Rising Press as the winner of their 2016 novella contest. Like her protagonist, Stielstra inhabits the Chicago area where she works as a professional librarian, but fell in love with the Kansas prairie, and now spends her time between the two. Visit her at juliestielstra.com.