Category: Meet The Officers

Meet the Officers: Kerry Moyer

5/16/2021

Kansas Authors Club is run by an all-volunteer board. Officers from across the state devote time monthly to everything from district programming to our annual writing contests and convention. Visit with your district representative about how you can contribute

Kerry Moyer is a member of Kansas Authors Club, District 2, and current Prose Contest Manager. He is also an active member of Emporia Writers. He is a poet and the author of two poetry collections, Dirt Road (2019) and Rust & Weeds (2020) through Kellogg Press. His poems Fireflies and Mass Street were published in Astra Magazine in December of 2020. Kerry has a new book release planned for the summer of 2021.

Meet the Officers: Anne Spry

5/13/2021

Anne Spry got her first writing accolades in a fifth grade What I Did Last Summer assignment and continued yucking it up as a humorist in her own Missouri newspaper for 27 years. She sold the newspaper in 2011, supposedly retiring, but fooled everyone (even herself) by launching a new writing and book publishing career. By then she had pushed southward into Jesse James territory and landed book clients with famous relatives like Satchel Paige, or the author who crossed the state line to write historic stuff about Jayhawkers and John Brown. Then she really became a traitor to her Mizzou Tiger journalism roots by landing in Topeka (her birthplace) a few years ago. Now she pretends to be all purple, or all blue and red, depending on which of her many diehard sports fan relatives supports KU or K-State and is within earshot.

The best thing she did since moving back to her birthplace and settling along the Wakarusa River was to join the Kansas Authors Club. She is still scratching her head over how a Bushwhacker could become president of District 1 a few months after enlisting.

Spry is a memoirist who has helped several writers publish personal histories. She has a Bachelor of Journalism degree from MU and a master’s in communication arts from Memphis State University. She has two works in progress: Bless Me Auntie: Finding Purpose as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil and Journaling Through Difficult Times to Find Healing and Transformation. Her author website is under construction but its working title is “Late Blooming Onion.”
Her first memoir was a collection of newspaper columns called Letters from Home. She has co-authored other books, including a true-crime memoir, Searching for Summer: A Solved but Unresolved Missing Persons Case that launched in 2019.

Anne serves as President of District 1 in 2021, and is leading the Convention Committee as District 1 is host for the annual convention this year.

Meet the Officers: Kristine Polansky

5/11/2021

As a writer, Kris Polansky, is best known for her poems, four of which were published in Tallgrass Voices edited by Gary Lechliter. She experiments with various poetic forms, studying how content and form shape each other. She grew up in Western Kansas (short grass country), writing puppet plays and short stories. She took a fiction writing class from James Gunn at the University of Kansas and went on to teach middle school English and social studies ten years before returning to school, the Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas, where (she jokes) she learned to write creative nonfiction. She has been named KAC Poet of the Year twice, most recently October 2020. Her poem, “Turning Points” won the 2016 Martin Luther King, Jr. Art and Writing Contest, adult division, Manhattan, Kansas. She served KAC for four years (2010-13) as Youth Contest Manager. Subsequently, she has served as a judge for the youth contest and is currently KAC Financial Secretary. She is also serving as KAC District 4 treasurer.

Meet the Officers: Curtis Becker

5/4/2021

Writer, teacher, editor, and publisher, Curtis Becker, has been a member of Kansas Authors Club (D2) since 2018 and has maintained the District 2 Website since 2019. In 2020 he was a member of the team that produced the online state convention and in 2021 he will be managing the state newsletter. He is also the vice-president of District 2. He is a member of the Emporia Writers Group and gives readings/hosts open mics in the area. He writes poetry, short fiction, memoir, and magazine articles.

With almost fifteen years in the classroom, students at the middle school, high school, and college levels have studied writing and literature with him. He has sponsored school yearbooks, newspapers, and scholars bowl teams and has presented on educational issues at regional conferences. Becker has edited sixteen books including Watch Your Head 2 by Kevin Rabas (October 2020) and, as Kellogg Press, published ten, including KAC's Childrens Book of the Year (2020), I Love the Child by Ronda Miller.

Becker grew up in Goodland and earned a BA in English from Emporia State University. He also has a Masters in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. A lifelong learner, Becker loves to attend workshops and continue to grow as a writer/teacher.

Recent Highlights:

Published in
Walt Whitman Collaborative Project, 2020
Spotlight Magazine, 2020
Great Plains Traverse, 2020
Bards Against Hunger, 5th Anniversary Edition, 2019

Books
He Watched and Took Note (Poetry/Short Fiction Collection) 2018

www.curtisbeckerbooks.com
www.kelloggpress.com

Meet the Officers: Linzi Garcia

5/2/2021

Linzi Garcia plays with language in poetry, essays, book reviews, and publicity materials. Her full-length poetry collection Thank You was published by Spartan Press in 2018, and since then she has been continually writing and publishing poetry about her experiences as a newspaper reporter, bartender, family gal, traveler, and philosopher. She and her partner Jase Buck co-authored a chapbook, Live a Great Story (Analog Submission Press 2019), about their short but impactful time in England.

Linzi also writes feature articles for Spotlight, the Emporia State University alumni magazine. She pursued her MA in English at ESU, during which she worked as an editorial assistant for Flint Hills Review and Bluestem Press, and as a graduate assistant to Kansas Poet Laureate Emeritus Kevin Rabas. Her research focused on Kansas poetry and small press publishing. Outside of the university, she was a reporter for The Emporia Gazette and bartender at Mulready’s Pub.

Garcia currently teaches English composition at ESU and still bartends after class. She continues her work with Rabas, which primarily consists of curating, designing, editing, and promoting his chapbooks and books, including Elizabeth’s City, Kansas Letters to a Young Poet, and More Than Words. Garcia also currently works as the publicist for Meadowlark Press.

Garcia became involved with KAC after building friendships with members across the state, particularly in Salina, Emporia, and in Lawrence, where she currently resides. She served as the 2020 free verse poetry contest judge and, after joining the club in 2021, serves as the 2021 poetry contest manager.

Meet the Officers: Monica Graves

4/29/2021

Monica Graves is the Director of Dental Assisting and Division Chair of Health & Human Services at Flint Hills Technical College in Emporia, Kansas. She was recognized as a Distinguished Alumna of FHTC in 2017.

Monica writes engaging stories about her upbringing in the rural Flint Hills where she lived with her parents, five sisters, one brother, and a couple of aunts in a farmhouse furnished with one bathroom and lots of love.

She is a District 2 member of The Kansas Authors Club.

Meet the Officers: Ann Vigola Anderson

4/27/2021

Ann Vigola Anderson is a native Kansan and graduate of the University of Kansas. She is grounded in the sense of place and is committed to the preservation of mid-century Kansas memories.

Her work has appeared in Tennis Pro Magazine and Itty Bitty Writing Space. For six years her comic strip, “The Borregosons,” appeared in the Borrego Springs, California, weekly newspaper, The Borrego Sun. When she lived in Borrego Springs, she taught a class at the desert nature center featuring desert children’s books and art.

Ann is a featured writer on Kansas Foto Framed by Gwenna (Reich) with over 1,300 followers. Ann is also a contributor to Snapshot Kansas with over 17,000 on-line members. She is designated as a “virtual storyteller” with posting of her photos and descriptions of Kansas places.

She currently serves on the planning committee for The Museum on Main Street’s Crossroads: Change in Rural American New Growth from Deep Roots in Wabaunsee County, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institute and Humanities Kansas.

"Who could write a book without having read other books, particularly those we have read over and over again? Pens up to Harper Lee who wrote my all-time favorite book, To Kill A Mockingbird. Mom gave it to me for my tenth birthday, and I have read it every year since. Also, gratitude to Margery Williams for creating The Velveteen Rabbit, a story of friendship and belonging which stayed with me throughout my childhood. Then, as an early adolescent, I discovered a role model in Nancy Drew and saved my allowance every week to buy a new Nancy Drew book. I raise my magnifying glass to Carolyn Keene."

Ann is new to KAC and active with the District 2, Lawrence writers’ group.

Ann’s first book--Posts of a Mid-Century Kid. Doing my best. Having fun—will be published in 2021 by Anamcara Press. It is a memoir that chronicles Ann’s childhood in Kansas and the love of her family and place. Her book was edited by Hazel Hart (D2).

Ann spends her days writing and teaching tennis at the Jayhawk Tennis Center, where she inspires peewees and the “senior class” to explore their place at the net. She and her husband, Vann, live in Lawrence, Kansas with their three kitties, Jazzy, Queenie, and Muffy.

Meet the Officers: Cathy Callen

4/25/2021

Cathy Callen graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor's degree in English and elementary education, and from the University of Kansas with a master's degree in early childhood special education. She also attended the Kansas City Art Institute for two years, majoring in photography. Cathy spent her career with Topeka Public Schools as a teacher and later as coordinator of the district’s preschool special education program. Cathy has had poetry published in Inscape, a publication of Washburn University, and in Tallgrass Voices, a publication of poems by members of the Kansas Authors Club, edited by Gary Lechliter. Her non-fiction article, “Reconstituting Allen,” appeared in the Fall/Winter 2012 edition of Connections, a journal published by the Indiana Historical Society. Her non-fiction article, “Magic Mondays,” appeared in the Summer 2013 edition of UU World, the magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Cathy’s article, “The Kansas City Daily Drovers Telegram and its leading role covering the livestock industry,” is included in the summer 2016 issue of the Jackson County (Missouri) Historical Society journal. In addition, she has written three books: Running out of Footprints (a family history), in 2013; Words in Rows, Poetry and Prose (a collection of poems and short prose), in 2016; and Ginkgo Glen (a novel) in 2018.

Cathy has been a member of District 2, Lawrence, Kansas for about eleven years and was KAC state treasurer for six of those years.

Her website is: www.cathycallen.com

Cathy’s books:

Works in Progress:Death by Marbles, (a novel), and
Untitled, (a biography)

Meet Duane Johnson

5/15/2019

Here at Kansas Authors Club, we are THANKFUL for the many individuals who share their talents in helping us to build a bigger, better writing community. Today we would like to introduce our new State Vice President, Duane Johnson.

Duane Johnson
2019 State Vice President
Book Contest Manager

Duane Johnson is a retired journalist who treats his poetry as an oral art form. He has published a volume of poetry entitled "Evolution's Promise" and is currently working on a novella and two other volumes of poetry.

Lives in Topeka. Married to a social worker. Two grown children. Modest house with gray siding on a dead-end street. Chain saw, fishing gear, and kayak in the garage. And the nearby 400-acre lake and surrounding woods is his laboratory.

Duane has been an active member of District 1 since 2014. He served as president of District 1 in 2018.

Visit Duane’s website: http://www.viewfromsmokyhill.com/

Meet Ronda Miller

4/16/2019

Ronda Miller
State President, Kansas Authors Club
2018-2019

Ronda Miller is a Life Coach and Poet who works with clients who have lost someone to homicide. She is currently a Peer Coach and traveling poet with Poetry for Personal Power. She is a Fellow of The Citizen Journalism Academy, World Company; a Certified Life Coach with IPEC (Institute of Professional Empowerment Coaching); a University of Kansas graduate; Lawrence resident; and mother to son, Scott, and daughter, Apollonia. Miller created poetic forms loku and ukol. She was a presenter at the Transformative Language Arts Conference at Goddard University in Vermont, October 2018. Miller gives presentations across the U.S. on grief, “Writing Your Trauma Without too Much Drama,” and end of life issues, “Talking to Crickets”.

Miller has three books of poetry, including MoonStain (Meadowlark 2015) and WaterSigns (Meadowlark 2017).

Ronda is the current President of Kansas Authors Club. She has served in past years as District 2 President and Convention Chair. At the state level she has been the Poetry Contest Manager (3 years) and Vice President (2016-2017).

When Miller isn’t coaching clients, or writing poetry, she is wandering The Arikaree Breaks and screaming into blizzards and thunderstorms.