Category: Marie Fletcher

Members Published in 105 Meadowlark Reader, Issue #2

11/2/2021

Carolyn Hall, D2 Member, is one of 21 Kansas Authors Club members published in the second issue of 105 Meadowlark Reader: Kansas Travel Stories.

The journal of Kansas creative nonfiction can be purchased at "Partner Bookstores" including Crow and Co Books (Hutchinson), Eighth Day Books (Wichita), Flint Hills Books (Council Grove), Raven Book Store (Lawrence), Russell Specialty Books & Gifts (Russell), and Watermark Books & Cafe (Wichita).

Subscriptions can also be purchased at Meadowlark Press.

Kansas Authors Club members featured in this issue include:

Ann Anderson (D2)

Curtis Becker (D2)

Sheryl Brenn (D7)

Annabelle Corrick (D1)

Gretchen Cassel Eick (D5)

Marie Baum Fletcher (D7)

Tammy Gilley (D6)

Michael D. Graves (D2)

Monica (Osgood) Graves (D2)

Carolyn Hall (D2)

Jerilynn Jones Henrikson (D2)

Sally Jadlow (D2)

Nancy Julien Kopp (D4)

Sandee Lee (D5)

Jim Potter (D6)

Julie A. Sellers (D1)

Mark Scheel (D2)

Tracy Million Simmons (D2)

Barbara Waterman-Peters (D1)

Brenda White (D2)

Editor, Chery Unruh (D2)

The journal is currently taking submissions for issue #3 to be published in the spring of 2022.

Theme: True Bicycle Stories
Guidelines can be found on the
105 Meadowlark Reader website.

LOVE OF WRITING LIVES FOREVER

3/8/2021

Submitted by Marie Fletcher, District 7 member of Kansas Authors Club.

Man has always felt the need to express himself. Not only through grunts, sign language and words, but by putting something down that will remain after he has moved on.

The use of Ogam, an ancient Celtic language, has been traced back as far as 2000 B.C. Ogam is written in a series of perpendicular parallel lines similar to the bar system found on items in a modern day store. Ogam writing has been uncovered at about fifty sites along a 100-mile corridor in Colorado’s southwestern corner and the Oklahoma Panhandle. Why did the early inhabitants need a written form of communication? Perhaps to call people together for religious reasons, trade, or to record a story of an event. One Ogam inscription is a kind of calendar that tells when a certain grain should be planted.

Almost everyone is familiar with rock art, which not only is found in America and credited to Native Americans, but is found all over the world. Rock art is a very general term for pecking, incising or painting designs onto natural rock surfaces.

In modern America, the most common kind of “rock” art is that which is painted on concrete and brick walls of our cities and along our highways. In modern American culture, as in all cultures, it expresses the values, attitudes, beliefs, and desires of society … the need to express ourselves. Writing is an important outlet for self-expression and the release of tensions, anxieties, and conflicts. Some individuals feel this urge to write more strongly than others.

Apparently down through the years, man’s need and desire to use writing as a way to communicate and express his feelings has not changed. Because of this inherent need and love of writing, The Kansas Authors Club was organized 116 years ago in 1904. The first president was Henry W. Roby. Kansas Authors Club is Kansas’ oldest writing organization. Since its inception, many famous writers have been counted among its members: Eugene Ware (Ironquill), Margaret Hill McCarter, William Allen White, Dr. Charles Shelton, Dr. Karl Menninger, and Senator Arthur Caper, to name a few. Today’s members are in excellent company.

The Kansas Authors Club still is meeting the need. As Professor I. B. Morgan, President of Kansas Author’s Club in 1935-’36 noted—the movement has been “forward and upward.” Professor Morgan stated that the nation at that time was in need of constructive literary productions teaching the sterling qualities of good citizenship, civic responsibility, the sovereignty of the people and a keen sense of duty.

People respond to writing, in whatever form, and find their imaginations stimulated, their sense of wonder awakened, and the horizons of their world pushed back just a little. It is only at the moment when a viewer responds to what is communicated by art or writing that the work becomes complete. In fact, the work is actually finished anew each time it is viewed, for no two viewers will see and respond in exactly the same way.

While writing fulfills the need and desire, the challenge still is there for us today. We can sate our need and love of writing, but we are challenged to do our best. To quote a poem by Edwin Markham:

There is waiting a work where only
your hands can avail:
And so if you falter, a chord in the
music will fail.
…..
Yes, the task that is given to each man
no other can do;
So your work is waiting: it has waited
through the ages for you.
And now you appear; and the Hushed
Ones are turning their gaze
To see what you do with your chance
in the chamber of days.

Right on ! Write on! W-R-I-T-E on… .

Marie Fletcher joined Kansas Authors Club in 1990. She worked as a typesetter and proof reader for her local newspaper, The Leoti Standard, for 10 years from 1974 to 1984. Marie says, "Writing is sort of an inherited trait in our family, and while working there I wrote several articles that they used in the paper. In 1990 I became a member of Kansas Authors Club, 7th District, and really enjoyed what I learned, as well as entering the writing contests in prose and poetry. I’ve had articles published in Reminisce, Country, Colorado Fence Post, Birds and Blooms, Good Old Days, Best Times, Older and Bolder and a few others. Also, some in our local paper which is now The Native Sun.

Kansas Authors Club Members to be Published in Inaugural Issue of 105: Meadowlark Reader

2/14/2021

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.

Length of Membership REcognition - 2020

10/3/2020

It is with sincere appreciation that we acknowledge your dedication and contribution to Kansas Authors Club. Please accept this small token of our gratitude. We look forward to many more years of fellowship and growing our organization for the benefit of writers like you.

Length of Membership Awards

Fred C. Appelhanz – 15 years
Roy J. Beckemeyer – 10 years
Patricia Bonine – 10 years
Annabelle Corrick – 10 years
Edna M. Dyck – 50 years*
Pauline Fecht – 20 years
Marie Fletcher – 30 years
Jean Grant – 10 years
Yvonne Evie Green – 20 years
Reaona T. Hemmingway – 15 years
Kelly W. Johnston – 10 years
Carole Katsantoness – 10 years
Peg Nichols – 15 years
Kristine A. Polansky – 15 years
Cheryl Skupa – 10 years
Candace C. Sherman – 30 years

Octogenarians
Sylvia Colombo (2018)
Tom Mach

Members Published in 105 Meadowlark Reader, Issue #2

LOVE OF WRITING LIVES FOREVER

Kansas Authors Club Members to be Published in Inaugural Issue of 105: Meadowlark Reader

Length of Membership REcognition - 2020

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