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.  

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.

Jeff G. Guernsey – 10 years
Ronda Miller – 10 years
Ray “Griz” Racobs – 10 years
Gloria Zachgo – 10 years
Michael D. Graves – 10 years
 
Susan Hill – 15 years
Arlene Rains Graber – 15 years
Betty A. Laird – 15 years
 
Tracy Million Simmons – 20 years
 
Joann Williams – 25 years
 
Maryann Barry – 30 years
Lorine A. Gleue – 30 years
Cynthia J. Ross – 30 years
 
Frankie Roland – 35 years
 
Millie Horlacher – 40 years
 
 
Octogenarians
Carol Katsantoness
Frank Powers*
Susan Hill
 
*has reached 5 years of membership
 

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.

March Author Talk:
Michael D. Graves

All Hallows' Shadows

Winner:
2020 J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award


Recording Available for Viewing by Members - Click Here​
​

​February Author Talk: Chuck Warner

Birds, Bones, and Beetles: The Improbable Career and Remarkable Legacy of University of Kansas Naturalist Charles D. Bunker

Winner:
2020 Martin Kansas History Book Award
​&
2020 "Looks Like A Million" Design Award

Tuesday, February 23, 7pm
Click here to register (must register to attend).
University Press of Kansas has agreed to offer members of KAC a 30% discount on copies of Warner's book. Beginning today, this offer is good through March 31, 2021, and applies only to online purchases from University Press of Kansas using the Promo Code KAC30.  (https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2773-8.html)  
​
​“While reading Chuck Warner’s book, I felt myself being transported back in time and seeing life through the eyes of Charles Bunker. Birds, Bones, and Beetles tells the story of naturalist Charles Bunker's life from his early years in Illinois in the late 1800s through his long career at the University of Kansas. Much like Charles Bunker, the book itself is unassuming and down to earth. Warner takes care to not only reveal Bunker's strengths but also his flaws. Yet, the book is more than a biography. Warner ties Bunker into a larger world that include his relationships with his colleagues and family, developments within the University of Kansas, and the natural history of the state. This well written and well researched book is not only a treat to read but is a valuable contribution to the history of Kansas.”

-Thomas C. Percy, PhD, judge, 2020 Martin Kansas History Book Award

March Author Talk: Michael D. Graves

All Hallows' Shadows

Winner:
2020 J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award

Tuesday, March 23, 7pm
Click here to register (must register to attend).
​
"In All Hallows’ Shadows, Michael D. Graves serves up both homage and an original take on the hard-boiled detective genre. The mean streets of the novel are historic Wichita, Kansas, which Mr. Graves renders impeccably, edging in a history lesson with his mystery. Graves, an evident baseball fan, hits through the cycle of the genre’s tropes, but does so in a manner entirely his own, realizing a style entirely his own. Out of a field of strong competition, my choice for the J. Donald Coffin Book Award is Michael D. Graves’s All Hallows’ Shadows."

-William Sheldon, judge, 2020 J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award

Recording Available for Viewing by Members - Click Here​
​

Recording Available for Viewing by Members - Click Here​
​

In All Hallows’ Shadows, Michael D. Graves serves up both homage and an original take on the hard-boiled detective genre. The mean streets of the novel are historic Wichita, Kansas, which Mr. Graves renders impeccably, edging in a history lesson with his mystery. Graves, an evident baseball fan, hits through the cycle of the genre’s tropes but does so in a manner entirely his own, realizing a style entirely his own. Out of a field of strong competition, my choice for the J. Donald Coffin Book Award is Michael D. Graves’s All Hallows’ Shadows.

Judge William Sheldon lives with his family in Hutchinson, Kansas where he teaches and writes. He took his BS and MA in English from Emporia State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University. His poetry and prose have been published widely in such journals as Blue Mesa Review, Columbia, Flint Hills Review, New Letters, and Prairie Schooner. He is the author of two books of poetry, Retrieving Old Bones (Woodley, 2002) and Rain Comes Riding (Mammoth, 2011), as well as a chapbook, Into Distant Grass (Oil Hill, 2009). Retrieving Old Bones was a Kansas City Star Noteworthy Book for 2002 and is listed as one of the Great Plains Alliance’s Great Books of the Great Plains. He plays bass for the band The Excuses.

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. ​

Emporia, KS – All Hallows’ Shadows, the third book of the Pete Stone, Private Investigator series, is the newest book by Kansas publisher, Meadowlark Books. The book retails for $16.98 and is now available for order.

Author Michael D. Graves (District 2 KAC member) created the character of Pete Stone as a memorial to his grandfather. The first book, To Leave a Shadow, published in 2015, took Graves by surprise when it was recognized as a 2016 Kansas Notable Book. Book 2, Shadow of Death, was released in 2017. The third book, released this month, comes just in time for a debut at the Iola Reads celebration, where To Leave a Shadow was chosen by the organizers in Iola, Kansas, to be the community read book.

Though the character of Pete Stone is fictional, the stories are set in an historically accurate 1930s Wichita. In book 3, Stone has been hired by a Wichita university professor to prove that the suspect in a recent murder investigation is innocent. While Stone begins to suspect the professor and his motives, additional murders bring to the surface clues that suggest the killer isn’t finished.
 
In the writing of the novels, Graves enjoys placing clues and mementos from his own story. Graves was born in Wichita, and his father is the model for Rusty, the paperboy who makes an appearance in all three novels, and the green bike that Rusty rides is a tip of the hat to Mike’s first published book, Green Bike. Graves enjoys exploring Wichita, studying locations for the Pete Stone novels. He has spent countless hours in Wichita libraries, both public and the university, gathering details for his novels.
 
Meadowlark books are available to order through any traditional bookstore and online book outlets. Books can also be purchased directly from the authors and from Meadowlark’s web-store at
​ www.meadowlark-books.square.site
###

Mike Graves has been a member of Kansas Authors Club since 2011, active in the District 2, Emporia area writing group, where he gave local writers a taste of author Jim Harrison and collaborated with Tracy Simmons and Kevin Rabas on their group novel Green Bike. During this time, he went from talking about the novel he'd been working on, to publishing what became his first Pete Stone book, To Leave A Shadow, with Meadowlark, where it won multiple awards. 
 
Mike has served KAC as Prose Contest Manager in 2016 and 2019, and made himself of service in many other ways, including stepping in to assist with the prose awards at the 2018 convention when the contest manager was unable to attend.  

Mike has a well-seasoned, well-pitched storytelling voice, and draws from a deep well of historical and personal anecdotes from his life. His presentations on writing the Pete Stone mysteries at the KAC convention in 2018 were insightful and enriching, and left participants thinking of the author himself as the kind of character you'd read about in one of his stories. Along with storytelling, Mike has many other qualities that bear mentioning in the line of duty: commiserating with the right amount of wisdom to win over self-pity, and bearing with all kinds of work while maintaining an attitude of being smitten with the prospect of doing so, were two that made him a most agreeable, enjoyable, thoroughly competent professional writer to have connected with the KAC and Emporia writing groups. Mike used his well-honed skills to corral judges and contest chairs alike for the KAC Literary Contests, as well as to care about the details both behind the scenes and at the front of the awards presentations, handling both with finesse and a touch of Pete Stone class. His devotion to his wife Monica and his family are touchstones to his work, and his empathy extended to the authors submitting to the Prose Contest, expressing itself in disappointment at not being able to read every entry before the judges did. What he has in spades, however, is a quality of kindness that makes him resonate with the uniquely human experience of stories, that makes how he writes and shares the world a uniquely Mike Graves experience, and that reaches out to readers, colleagues, and community alike who receive his works and get to know him better in person.  

Nominated by: Wendy Devilbiss, D2,
​and Tracy Million Simmons, D2