You are welcome to share a copy of our Zine with friends! The PDF is available for download for free from our new "Publications" page (link below and in the menu to the left). Instructions for purchasing physical copies of the Zine are also on that page.
updated: 11/10/2023 We are so excited about the inaugural addition of the KAC Zine. Thanks to our amazing members, we have around 100 pages full of great articles, stories, poems, and visual art. Thanks for your patience as we prepared this first issue. Good stuff is always worth the wait, right? You are welcome to share a copy of our Zine with friends! The PDF is available for download for free from our new "Publications" page (link below and in the menu to the left). Instructions for purchasing physical copies of the Zine are also on that page. For more details, Discover why deer don’t like to be lassoed, what it’s like to drive down a mountain pass without power steering or power brakes after the engine quits, and learn what can happen when cultures clash in these stories of fun, fear, and folly.
David Hann’s Bluebirds To Tikal is a travel journal, of sorts. filled with tales of adventure and misadventure from central U.S.A. to central Asia. Coming in December from Anamcara Press, LLC! Preorders available now! A note from member, Clyde Tolland:
I recently received a Silver Medallion in the Will Rogers Medallion Awards competition. This is for volume one, American Hero, Kansas Heritage, of my Becoming Frederick Funston Trilogy and was in the category of Western Biographies/Memoirs. This volume previously received a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Coming December 6, Amber Fraley's new essay collection drops. With her trademark biting wit, Amber Fraley describes the foibles and follies of growing up a kid in the turbulent and strange decade of the 1980s, odd characters she encountered in the 1990s, and how GenXers are now handling midlife differently than their parents did. She also talks frankly about her late entry into the reproductive justice movement and what menopause is really like with equal parts humor and compassion. From the long, strange trip of the Reagan years to the Trump years, and the particular frustrations of being from the Midwest, Fraley’s view on life is refreshing.
"Grab this book and grab a recliner for the life of a Generation! Generation X, that is. Amber Fraley’s writing is brilliant, insightful, and funny! I just hope your recliner has a seatbelt. You will need it!" -Andrew Evans, Pickleball Librarian Native Blood, the fourth novel in the series featuring private investigator Harry Przewalski, will be published Dec. 6, 2023 by Anamcara Press (Anamcara-Press.com for preorder). In the back-biting world of academia, a biological anthropologist studying indigenous genetics is found bludgeoned to death, his head lying in a pool of Native American DNA. The university chancellor’s son, an Athabascan native and archeology student, is charged with murder. He’d led a violent protest against the genomic studies of the first Americans. PI Harry Przewalski becomes immersed in a tangle of deceit, personal vendettas, unethical research, and illicit affair, and the coverup of an archeological bombshell. Treachery surrounds a missing flint spear point, 13,000 years old from western Kansas, that threatens to upend careers and what we knew about the first Americans. Was the anthropologist killed over an explosive theory that the Americas were peopled at least twice from different continents more than 15,000 years ago? Native Blood also tackles the intense conflicts between genetics, archeology, and the Native Americans’ own origin stories. It reveals anthropology’s long entanglement with race and racial theory, and the darkest shadows cast by the unspeakable treatment of indigenous peoples. My novel "One" is available at Trox Gallery and Gifts in Emporia. Also on Amazon. All of us along for the ride, the little blue dot turns. The first curve of the sun appears, peeking up in the east. Sunlight moves across the Atlantic Ocean, and morning comes to New York City. The air is too hot, too thin, and millions of people struggle just to breathe, to stay alive. The world teeters on the brink of our final war. Traffic fills the streets, and people make their way on the sidewalks. Another mammal is on the sidewalk, a thriving rat dragging a piece of pizza. A woman screams while a nearby man marvels at the creature. “How much food is being thrown away to support thirty million of these mammals? Why are they throwing food away while so many Homo sapiens go hungry?” He snaps a picture of the rat and asks, “Is that pepperoni? I love pepperoni.” This chaotic meeting leads to an unlikely friendship between the man, the woman, and her son. Grace is a physicist, brilliant, beautiful, tasked with calculating entry paths of titan missile warheads—and filled with worry for her autistic son. Androgynous, eccentric Bob doesn’t care what Grace looks like. He makes Grace feel like he’s not looking at her, but into her. He asks unusual questions that make her take a deeper look at her life, “Does your job make you feel hopeful?” Jack, eleven, is uncoordinated, autistic, genius, and afraid he’ll never have friends. Bob sees Jack’s quirks as gifts and recognizes in him the potential to do anything, the future we could have if more people were like him. He takes the time to listen to Jack’s endless questions and answers them patiently. But soon others start asking their own questions about Bob, and there’s a very real chance the world isn’t ready to learn the answers. Can these three unlikely friends convince the world to accept the truth and save us all? Or will they push us over the brink? 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. Bull in the Ring by Al Ortolani Meadowlark Press, October 2023 Retail: $19.99 ISBN: 978-1-956578-42-3 EBOOK: 978-1-956578-43-0 FICTION / Small Town & Rural FICTION / Coming of Age FICTION / Historical / General Armed with only poetry and wit, Danny wears his dead father’s army jacket and copes with the string of losers and abusers brought home by his mother. Will he find direction before he reaches the end of this dead-end road life has handed to him? What Readers are Saying: Al Ortolani’s Bull in the Ring manages to conjure other great coming-of-age stories—think The Catcher in the Rye, think The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian—while being “in a football conference all its own.” Danny Prego is an instantly iconic protagonist, masking deep hurt and insecurity with careful bravado and one-liners, with his dad’s boots that make him taller and the dream of a letter jacket that will make him feel like someone. Bull in the Ring is a time capsule of a book that made me nostalgic for an era before I was even born. —Melissa Fite Johnson, author of Green (Riot in Your Throat, 2021) Al Ortolani’s crisp prose, peppered with poetry, grabs the reader and doesn’t let go. Will Danny find an exit on that dead-end road? Bull in the Ring is fiction, but its story is true. It takes place in my town. It takes place in yours. Don’t take my word for it. Read it for yourself. —Michael D. Graves, author of Human Shadow, Pete Stone Private Investigator series Life to teen Danny Prego is one long series of hard knocks, from an alcoholic single mother and her dangerous boyfriend to finding trouble at school. Danny reads his reality like a football team and game, always getting back up and out of the mud and muck, regardless of how hard the tackles are. Just as he thinks he’s found secure footing in the circle of senior football players, life comes at Danny from all angles, then deals him a blow that will either take him to his knees or show him the way forward. Despite his tough-guy exterior, Danny Prego is a character who is all heart. Readers of all ages will be firmly on Danny’s team and cheering for him as he faces his most difficult decision to try to escape being the Bull in the Ring. --Julie A. Sellers, author of Ann of Sunflower Lane and Kansas Authors Club Prose Writer of the Year (2020, 2022) Al Ortolani nailed small town Kansas life in this thoughtful, well-crafted teenage odyssey. It had me eager to see what would happen next . . . right up to the evocative ending. Indeed, I was so captivated by protagonist, Danny Prego, and his hard-scrabble life that I was left yearning for a sequel. —J.T. Knoll, The Morning Sun (Pittsburg, Kansas) Al Ortolani knows how to tell a tale so it’s like we’re in Danny’s shoes, trying to keep a few steps ahead of troubles that take it in turn to smash into that bull in the ring who we’re soon-enough rooting for. —Brian Daldorph, Kansas Poems Al Ortolani is the Manuscript Editor for Woodley Press in Topeka, Kansas, and has directed a memoir writing project for Vietnam veterans across Kansas in association with the Library of Congress and Humanities Kansas. He is a 2019 recipient of the Rattle Chapbook Series Award. He has been a Kansas Notable Book recipient in 2017 and 2021. His poetry has appeared in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. After 43 years of teaching English in public schools, he currently lives a life without bells and fire drills in the Kansas City area with his wife Sherri and their rescue dog Stanley. Al joined Kansas Authors Club in 2023. Our Mothers' Ghosts and Other Stories by Marilyn Hope Lake Meadowlark Press, October 2023 Retail: Paperback $19.99, hardcover $29.99 FICTION / Women FICTION / Feminist FICTION / Short Stories (single author) FICTION / Historical / General Forced to extremes in order to escape women’s accepted societal roles, the protagonists in this short story collection—the women of one midwestern river town family—overcome hardship and heartbreak, pain and pressure, in order to burst the bonds that hold them and bring forth a better future for their daughters and sons. Their struggles comprise a panorama of women’s issues that span the twentieth century: social injustice, sexism, discrimination, and racism. These ordinary women experienced it all, and the unique ways in which they dealt with these issues illustrate a past we should all hope to leave behind. What Reviewers are Saying: Set in Illinois and Missouri river towns and cities from the early to late twentieth century, these plainspoken stories resurrect the past in all its glorious particulars, without sanctifying or sentimentalizing a mixed heritage of familial love and abuse. It’s all here: romance, rape, domestic violence, segregation, integration, the sexual revolution, political upheaval, and each generation’s backlash against the excesses of the last. Our Mothers’ Ghosts revolves around two archetypal sisters, and Lake takes great relish in revealing the dark impulses of the golden girl Helen and the disruptive innocence of the black sheep Boots. Amid the palpable pleasures of the book’s rich historical detail, there is always the shock of something blunt and honest and new. —Trudy Lewis, author of The Empire Rolls Marilyn Hope Lake’s work is very impressive. Lake’s tender prose transports the reader to an earlier, yet not-so-simple time, that reminds us of our past and guides us to a more hopeful future. Her stories have an effect you may have seen in a classic film, beginning with an evocative black and white photograph that suddenly blooms in full, technicolor glory as the narrative springs to life. —Daren Dean, author of Far Beyond the Pale and Black Harvest Our Mothers’ Ghosts is a wonderful collection of interconnected short stories that gains in complexity with each story, creating a rich portrait of work and women in twentieth-century America. --Steve Wiegenstein, Author, Scattered Lights, Slant of Light, This Old World, and The Language of Trees Marilyn Hope Lake writes short fiction, poetry, plays, and children’s picture books. She has many awards, including Kansas Authors Club contest wins. Dr. Lake’s first place story, “Harry’s Stone,” was published in Words Out of the Flatlands; Kansas Writers Association. Lake is published in Rock Springs Review, STIR, Well-Versed: Literary Works, the Gasconade Review, the Mizzou Alumni Magazine, and 105 Meadowlark Reader. Marilyn lived in Hutchinson, Kansas, from 2002-2017, is a long time active member of the Kansas Authors Club. She helped facilitate the 2014 annual conference. She misses her Kansas friends, but is happy to live with her canine companion, Hugo, near family in Columbia, Missouri. Jim Gilkeson was born in Wichita, Kansas, and attended the University of Kansas until 1971. Gilkeson's books are Three Lost Worlds: A Memoir of Life Among Mystics, Healers, and Life-Artists (Mammoth Publications), A Pilgrim in Your Body, and Energy Healing: A Pathway to Inner Growth. His stories and articles have appeared in The Memoirist Quarterly, 105 Meadowlark Reader, Massage and Bodywork Magazine, and The Heart of Healing, edited by Dawson Church.
Armed with his trusty birch wand and protective shield, young apprentice wizard Alistur Grimaldi believes he can wield his powers with the same determination and results as his beloved mentor, his Great-grandfather Balthazar. His amusement quickly turns to anguish when his inexperience triggers a chain of disastrous events, putting him-and others-in dire circumstances. Mere hours after the most important event in his fourteen years, Alistur must find the courage to face the catastrophic proof of his foolish actions and make things right. . .if he can. From the coast of the Azlyn Sea to the depths of the Crystal Caverns-befriending magical and mystical creatures along his way-Alistur must learn the journey to becoming a wise and responsible wizard will not be walked alone. D.L. Winter was raised in Kansas and spent her adult life in Northern California. Many years ago, on her first trip abroad, inspired by the nostalgic allure of legends, lore, and architectural wonders of the Mediterranean region, the concept for Alistur’s story was born. However, crafting the fable would have to wait. Plotting adventures in the fictitious Kingdom of Fleurbania would be among the creative projects of her retirement. After a corporate career, D.L. now resides in her home state of Kansas once again, telling tales and enjoying life with family members. Judge Andrew Howard is an owner/operator of his family’s independent operation, Round Table Bookstore, in the NOTO Arts District in Topeka. He has plenty of experience in judging books by their covers (and interiors) after a few years of being the primary book purchaser for the store. He also coordinates author events and marketing efforts at Round Table. Andrew’s day job is heading up the IT department at Silver Lake, KS schools. Join Mama Cat and her playful kittens as they take inspiration from some of the world's great masterpieces to learn the art of being a cat in author Jenn Bailey and illustrator Nyangsongi's picture book Meowsterpieces. Discover how to be adored in The Birth of Venus by Boticelli; learn how to be brave in Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa; and taught how to be gentle with Henry Ossawa Tanner's The Banjo Lesson. Meowsterpieces is a book for art lovers, cat lovers, and everyone in between! And with extensive back matter that includes information about each of the original artworks, it's educational, too. The artworks featured include The Study of a Student by Laura Wheeler Waring; The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci; The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli; The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijin; Nighthawks by Edward Hopper; A Sunday on la Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat; Bedroom in Arles by Vincent van Gogh; Jockey on a Galloping Horse by Eadweard Muybridge; The Dancing Class by Edgar Degas; Children's Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder; Under the Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai; The Banjo Lesson by Henry Ossawa Tanner; and New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam by Charles Clyde Ebbets. Jenn Bailey is an award-winning author and editor who has her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her books have received the ALA Schneider Family Honor award, Bank Street Book of the Year award, been chosen as Junior Library Guild Selections, been star-reviewed by Kirkus, The Horn Book, and Publishers Weekly, and been included in numerous state reading lists, among other accolades. Jenn is a frequent guest lecturer and workshop leader for SCBWI, Heartland Writers for Kids and Teens, and the One Year Adventure Novel workshops. Jenn is published by Chronicle Books; Arcadia Press; Magic Cat Publishing; Little, Brown and Company; and Levine Querido and is represented by Erica Silverman with The Stimola Literary Agency. Judge Angie Reed, M.L.S. Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library Teen Librarian You will know Librarian Angie Reed before you meet her as her passion for her profession shines in service to the young people in our community. She finds purpose in her work with teens and is committed to creating a place of inspiration and safety for young people to be themselves. Angie’s undergraduate studies include a B.A. in Library Science and Media with a Minor in Identity Studies, and she holds a Master of Library Science from Texas Woman’s University. In her spare time, she can be found walking her dog Nadia while listening to an audio book or holed up at home binge-watching a good show. Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street), Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize), and The Book of Stolen Images (Meadowlark Press, 2023). Harbor Review’s chapbook prize is named in her honor, and she’s the president of Small Harbor Publishing’s Board of Directors. Her degrees are from Old Dominion University, where she interned for the Associated Writing Programs Newsletter, and Arizona State University. Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri. From her home in Pittsburg, Kansas, she edits The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative. Judge was Joseph Harrington, who teaches at the University of Kansas. He is the author of Of Some Sky (BlazeVOX Books 2018); Goodnight Whoever’s Listening (Essay Press 2015); Things Come On (an amneoir)(Wesleyan UP 2011); and the critical work Poetry and the Public (Wesleyan UP 2002). His creative work has appeared in BAX: The Best American Experimental Writing 2016, Colorado Review, The Rumpus, Hotel America, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. From 2019-2023, he maintained a real-time verse-chronicle of the climate crisis, at The Poem of Our Climate and Writing Out of Time. Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas Jim Minick is the author or editor of eight books, including Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas (nonfiction), The Intimacy of Spoons (poetry, forthcoming), Fire Is Your Water (novel), and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. His work has appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, Poets & Writers, Oxford American, Orion, Shenandoah, Appalachian Journal, Wind, and The Sun. He serves as Coeditor of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel. Judge Bruce Mactavish is Washburn University Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences, and Assistant Professor of History. Bruce holds a BA from Furman University, and MA and PhD from University of Mississippi. He teaches Kansas Studies, Kansas History and U. S. History through and since the Civil War. His scholarly interests include African American History, the Civil Rights Movement, Kansas history and the American West. 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 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).
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. 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). [Emporia, Kansas] Meadowlark Poetry Press announces the release of Arlice W. Davenport’s fourth poetry collection, In Search of the Sublime!
Book Description: In Arlice Davenport’s fourth poetry collection, the poems express a constant search for and admiration of the sublime. Through experience and education, Davenport’s erudite knowledge of classical landscapes, literature, art, and philosophy connect mankind across time. The poet’s outward quests help inform and satisfy his inward quests for meaningfulness. These poems are restless in their pursuit of awe-inspiring moments, and they share these moments with us, the reader who picks this book up to experience something sublime in the first place. About the Author: Arlice W. Davenport is the author of four collections of poems, Setting the Waves on Fire, Everlasting: Poems, Kind of Blue: New Poems, and In Search of the Sublime, published, respectively, by Meadowlark Press (2020) and Meadowlark Poetry Press (2021, 2022, and 2023). He is the retired Books editor and Travel editor for The Wichita Eagle newspaper. He and his wife, Laura, continue their travels, which include more than 30 stays in Europe. What Readers Are Saying: . . . Davenport blends passion, erudition, instinctive poetic craftsmanship, and his abiding love of language to bring his thoughts burgeoning to life. There is a great expansiveness in this collection; the overarching sky is a recurring setting, whether the stage is internal and intensely personal, the corporeal world, or heavenly . . . . . . I suspect you will read through this book, as I did, to find yourself breathless, anticipating the rest of your day, looking forward to all your tomorrows. —Roy J. Beckemeyer, author of Mouth Brimming Over and Amanuensis Angel I have a new novel out now which is currently available on Amazon but will soon also be available at bookstores in the US. Its title is Unearthing the True Cross. Hope you will read it. Here are a few questions covered in my novel...
While landscaping on the Mount of Olives, Dante Leon encounters a Bedouin man who insists that he discovered, while exploring a Qumran cave, a map showing where Jesus was really crucified. To prove him wrong, Dante digs in that spot and finds five pieces of petrified wood as well as a scroll written by Joseph of Arimathea. A deaf and mute lost little orphan girl encounters Dante, who cures her with prayer and one of the artifacts. A blind Muslim boy is similarly cured. Dante and his family run tests on these artifacts and conclude what they have found is apparently the True Cross. Terrorists now are out to kill Dante's daughter as well as the pope who is about to announce to the world that these wooden pieces, when put together, form the crossbeam of Christ. 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. Billings, MT– Two Kansas books made it to the top of the list in the High Plains Book Awards in 2023. The awards, begun in 2007, “recognize regional literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.”
Julie A. Sellers (Atchison), author of Ann of Sunflower Lane and Ruth Maus (Topeka) author of Puzzled: Poems, will make the trip to Billings, Montana, to attend the book award festivities where the winners will be announced on October 7, 2023. Both will be participating in panels: Sellers taking about “Fiction: Better for the Brain?” and Maus participating in a poetry reading and discussion. Ann of Sunflower Lane is one of three finalists in the young adult category. The novel is about the way books and reading impact readers. “The title character, Ann Alwyn, is an avid reader, and when she comes to live with the grandparents she never knew at Sunflower Lane farm, she discovers a kindred spirit in an old edition of Anne of Green Gables. Her reading of that and other texts frames her experiences as she integrates herself into life on the farm and in the small-town community of Storey, Kansas,” says Sellers. Puzzled is a finalist in the poetry category. Maus wrote most of the poems in Puzzled during the pandemic, and the 110-page book is filled will her German cousin’s full-color paintings. The poetry and art in Puzzled (Meadowlark Press, 2022) has connections dating back to 1882, when the great-grandfather of Ruth Maus came to the US as a young boy with his parents and siblings. They were Germans who eventually settled on a farm in Holton, Kansas, where a descendent still lives and farms to this day. The ancestral village, which Ruth Maus was able to visit in 1997, is now a part of Poland. Cousins met, including descendent of a brother to Ruth’s great-grandfather who stayed behind. Gertrud Knuth and Ruth have maintained contact since that trip, and Gertrud’s daughter, Katja Weiss, an artist living near Hamburg, Germany, has taken over those communications in this digital age. Both books are available at meadowlarkbookstore.com and can be ordered wherever books are sold. ### Post Rock Press is proud to announce the publication of "Now That I Am Older: Poems and Short Stories" by long time Kansas Authors Club member, Myrne Roe. We are highly anticipating her book signing event at Watermark Books and Café at 1:00 on October 8.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to chat with Myrne, as she shares insights into her writing career and the literary treasures within this collection. "Now that I Am Older" is a captivating collection that displays Myrne’s award-winning poems, spellbinding short stories, and personal favorites. Mark your calendar and be there to celebrate this remarkable author’s timeless work. From the elegant Foreword by Roy J. Beckemeyer, author of "The Currency of His Light": “Roe proffers us the captivating glimmer of moments, insights, smiles, tears; a treasure chest of words and imagery to enjoy over and over again, each time we open its cover.” “Whether she is talking about a funeral—her own—or squirrels, or pondering a wedding ceremony and how fleeting life’s defining moments are, or just what it is like to live a full and examined life, her wisdom and inner truth is a salve to me. It will be to you, too.”—Sarah Bagby, Owner, Watermark Books & Café. “You will see yourself in her writing.”—Kelly Johnston, Fellow poet. Myrne Roe is a former teacher, congressional chief of staff, university public relations executive, editorial writer, and nationally syndicated columnist. Winner of awards for her poetry, her feminist anthology, Radiating Like a Stone, is a gold mine of the history of Wichita women. Now an octogenarian, these poems and short stories reflect her life and career. Now at Watermark Books, online, and your favorite bookstore. Friends,
Thanks to all those who have read Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas. It’s found a wide and terrific reception. The Midwest and Northeast book tours were excellent, including packed-house events in Wichita and then a week later in Udall on the 68th anniversary of the tornado. Thanks to so many for coming to these events, reading the book, gifting it to others, and/or sending comments. More events—in person and online—listed below. Events: (All events are free and open to the public.) For details, please visit www.jim-minick.com. --Sept 7, 7:00, Blacksburg (VA) Public Library with Blacksburg Books Author Talk with Jim Minick - Library Calendar - Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library (libcal.com) --Sept. 13, 7:30 EST, 6:30 CST. Virtual Lecture for Kansas Historical Society. Zoom Link to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IAIsrEA4Ta6SK_tctdD94w The webinar will also be streamed live on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/kansashistorical Afterwards it will be archived there in the Museum After Hours playlist. --Sept. 14, 6:00 PM, Floyd (VA) Public Library Author Talk with Jim Minick - Library Calendar - Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library (libcal.com) --Sept. 21, 5:00 PM, Radford University McConnell Library --Oct 19, 6:00 PM, UNC-Greensboro, with Corrie Lynn White. Preceded by a reception. UNCG Alumni House, College Ave. Jim Minick and Corrie Lynn White Alumni Fiction and Poetry Reading (uncg.edu) --Nov 15, East Tennessee State U, Johnson City, TN. Details TBA. --Lastly, Blacksburg Books has signed copies in stock. If you can’t make any of these events, please support this super, indie bookstore. New Media: --Recently I was interviewed for Kansas Public Radio’s “Kansas Presents” program. The episode should air sometime in late September or early October and be available and archived here: KPR Presents (kansaspublicradio.org) --I was also interviewed for PBS Kansas for their Positively Kansas (kpts.org) program. Again, it should air sometime in September or October, and afterward, it’ll be available on their webpage. --Poets & Writers Podcast host Henry McCarthy interviewed me in August. Listen here or wherever you find podcasts. Other News: --The Makery Online Class. I’ll be teaching an online, three-session class on creative nonfiction this fall about essays in their various and lovely forms. Info here: The Makery: Essays that Open Doors with Jim Minick - Hindman Settlement School. Dates: Oct 28th, Nov 11th, and Nov 18th, all 3 classes from 10:00-12:00 AM. Hindman Settlement School offers several other cool classes through this program. Check them all out. --The Intimacy of Spoons, my newest book of poetry, is coming together with a beautiful cover by Suzanne Stryk. It’ll be available in March of 2024. Gratitude and Help: Without Warning has been in the making for over 12 years, which also means that MANY people helped in its creation. A huge thanks to all. There are still many ways you can help in the book’s success. Specifically: --If you’re on social media, spread the word and post about the book. Reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, and elsewhere make a difference. --If you’re a writer, podcaster, journalist, reviewer, radio/TV host, etc. interested in this book, let’s talk. --If you are part of a school, bookstore, library, museum, etc. and interested in hosting an event like a reading, conversation, slideshow, etc., again, let’s talk. --Same with book clubs. If you’re part of one, suggest this book. I’ve had terrific conversations via Zoom with book clubs all over the country. --Ask your local libraries (public and/or university) to order the book. Lastly, these email newsletters are very occasional, but even if they still clog up your inbox too much and you no longer want to receive them, I understand. If so, please respond by adding REMOVE to the subject line, without deleting the rest of the subject line. The cedar waxwings are gorging on the red holly berries here in Virginia; I wish you such a bountiful and beautiful fall. Thank you and all kind regards, Jim www.jim-minick.com |
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