Small Group Meeting Schedule
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The Manhattan KAC writing group meets every other Thursday from 5:30 till 7:00 in the evening at the Manhattan Public Library, 629 Poyntz Ave., Manhattan, Kansas.
The meeting room changes from time to time. Sometimes the group meets in one of the study rooms, and sometimes one of larger rooms is available. The reference librarian will have the room information. Plus regular attendees get email notices the week of the meeting. Both prose and poetry writers are represented. The meeting is open to all writers, whether or not they are KAC members or residents of Manhattan. Bring some writing to share or a writing problem to work on or writing tips. |
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2024 Dates:
September`12, 2024
September 26, 2024
October 10, 2024
October 24, 2024
November 7, 2024,
November 21, 2024
December 5, 2024
December 19, 2024
September`12, 2024
September 26, 2024
October 10, 2024
October 24, 2024
November 7, 2024,
November 21, 2024
December 5, 2024
December 19, 2024
PREVIOUS OPEN MICS & D3/D4 Meeting Programs:
June 13, 2023 - Open Mic, no featured reader.
May 9, 2023 - Open Mic featuring cowboy poet Tim Keane as featured reader.
April 11, 2023 - Open Mic featuring Kris Polansky & Nancy Julien Kopp - members shared stories about their mothers.
May 9, 2023 - Open Mic featuring cowboy poet Tim Keane as featured reader.
April 11, 2023 - Open Mic featuring Kris Polansky & Nancy Julien Kopp - members shared stories about their mothers.
March 14, 2023 - Open Mike with Duane Johnson as Featured Reader
Duane Johnson (Topeka member and former state president, 2020-21). Duane read poems from his 2022 award-winning chapbook.
Duane Johnson (Topeka member and former state president, 2020-21). Duane read poems from his 2022 award-winning chapbook.
January 10, 2023 - Open Mic with Nila Jean Spencer as Featured Reader
Nila, a member since 2020, joins us from Annapolis, Maryland. Nila was born and raised in Marshall County, Kansas. She writes memoir, nonfiction, and enjoys preserving family stories to share with her grandchildren.
Nila, a member since 2020, joins us from Annapolis, Maryland. Nila was born and raised in Marshall County, Kansas. She writes memoir, nonfiction, and enjoys preserving family stories to share with her grandchildren.
December 13 - Holiday Open Mic with Nancy Julien Kopp as Featured Reader
Nancy Julien Kopp writes in the Flint Hills of Kansas. She writes fiction stories for children, personal essays, memoir, poetry, articles on the craft of writing and short fiction for adults. She has been published in many magazines, ezines and anthologies, including 22 times in Chicken Soup for the Soul. She blogs about her writing world with tips and encouragement for writers at www.writergrannysworld.blogspot.com. She also shares these tips daily on our Kansas Authors Club Facebook page.
Nancy Julien Kopp writes in the Flint Hills of Kansas. She writes fiction stories for children, personal essays, memoir, poetry, articles on the craft of writing and short fiction for adults. She has been published in many magazines, ezines and anthologies, including 22 times in Chicken Soup for the Soul. She blogs about her writing world with tips and encouragement for writers at www.writergrannysworld.blogspot.com. She also shares these tips daily on our Kansas Authors Club Facebook page.
November 15 - Open Mic with Deb Hadachek as Featured Reader
Deb Hadachek is a native of Republic County and has spent 43 years and counting as a writer and columnist for the Belleville Telescope, a weekly newspaper. (She started her career at a time when “cutting and pasting” to edit a story involved scissors and Scotch tape.)
She is a commissioned lay pastor and has served First Presbyterian Church in Beloit for 14 years. (Both newspaper and church require the same skills: reading, writing, visiting with people and drinking coffee).
She and her husband, Merle, a retired vocational agriculture teacher, live on a farm near Cuba, Kansas, and have two sons: Tim, an attorney in Kansas City, and Jeff, a grad student in ag economics at the University of California-Davis.
Deb Hadachek is a native of Republic County and has spent 43 years and counting as a writer and columnist for the Belleville Telescope, a weekly newspaper. (She started her career at a time when “cutting and pasting” to edit a story involved scissors and Scotch tape.)
She is a commissioned lay pastor and has served First Presbyterian Church in Beloit for 14 years. (Both newspaper and church require the same skills: reading, writing, visiting with people and drinking coffee).
She and her husband, Merle, a retired vocational agriculture teacher, live on a farm near Cuba, Kansas, and have two sons: Tim, an attorney in Kansas City, and Jeff, a grad student in ag economics at the University of California-Davis.
September 13 - Open Mic with Catherine Hedge as Featured Reader
Poet, novelist, technical writer, editor, lyricist, and educator Catherine Hedge was our our featured reader for our 7:00 p.m. Zoom meeting, Tuesday, September 13, 2022.
Learn more about Catherine at Pen in Hand and, in anticipation of the upcoming KAC Convention, take a look at this article where Catherine shares her experiences with writing conventions.
Poet, novelist, technical writer, editor, lyricist, and educator Catherine Hedge was our our featured reader for our 7:00 p.m. Zoom meeting, Tuesday, September 13, 2022.
Learn more about Catherine at Pen in Hand and, in anticipation of the upcoming KAC Convention, take a look at this article where Catherine shares her experiences with writing conventions.
August 9, 2022: Author Talk with Adelaide Bauman
2021 Children's Book Award Winner, Adelaide Bauman, author of Zara the Zebu, reviewed the entire process of creating, planning, writing, designing, and publishing an award-winning children's book.
"As a first time author with a very fresh perspective, I hope that my experience- from storyboarding, to finding and working with an illustrator, to the editing process and beyond, will offer you insights into possible avenues, hang-ups, and victories you may choose and experience when working to self-publish your own children's book, or perhaps inspire you to work with one of our great Kansas publishers instead. Either way, it is my hope that by sharing my experience, I can help another future author find their way to holding their very own book in their hands!"
--Adelaide Bauman, D3 member
Members access the archived video recording on the "members only" pages.
2021 Children's Book Award Winner, Adelaide Bauman, author of Zara the Zebu, reviewed the entire process of creating, planning, writing, designing, and publishing an award-winning children's book.
"As a first time author with a very fresh perspective, I hope that my experience- from storyboarding, to finding and working with an illustrator, to the editing process and beyond, will offer you insights into possible avenues, hang-ups, and victories you may choose and experience when working to self-publish your own children's book, or perhaps inspire you to work with one of our great Kansas publishers instead. Either way, it is my hope that by sharing my experience, I can help another future author find their way to holding their very own book in their hands!"
--Adelaide Bauman, D3 member
Members access the archived video recording on the "members only" pages.
July 2022 - Open Mic with Tom Homquist, featured reader
Tom Holmquist is a 5th generation farmer and rancher near Smolan, Kansas. He also is a retired teacher in the Smoky Valley School District having taught music, American History, and agriculture for 44 years. He has also published 3 books including Pioneer Cross, Swedish Settlements Along the Smoky Hill Bluffs, Bluestem, a novel, and Salemsborg, A History of the Salemsborg Church and community, Volume 1, 1869-1939, for which he won the Award of Commendation for Lutheran Church History from the Augustana Historical Association. Tom has several writing projects in the works in-between feeding cows, putting up hay, and planting and harvesting crops.
Tom Holmquist is a 5th generation farmer and rancher near Smolan, Kansas. He also is a retired teacher in the Smoky Valley School District having taught music, American History, and agriculture for 44 years. He has also published 3 books including Pioneer Cross, Swedish Settlements Along the Smoky Hill Bluffs, Bluestem, a novel, and Salemsborg, A History of the Salemsborg Church and community, Volume 1, 1869-1939, for which he won the Award of Commendation for Lutheran Church History from the Augustana Historical Association. Tom has several writing projects in the works in-between feeding cows, putting up hay, and planting and harvesting crops.
June 2022
D3/D4 hosted the State Author Talk with Lisa Stewart.
Members access the archived video recording on the "members only" pages.
D3/D4 hosted the State Author Talk with Lisa Stewart.
Members access the archived video recording on the "members only" pages.
May 2022 - Open Mic with Holly Friesen, featured reader
H. C. Friesen: K-State Graduate, author, illustrator, watercolorist, and teacher of the Joy of Drawing Classes is excited to announce her self-published books are now ready for reading!
Holly Catherine Friesen grew up surrounded by Kansas relatives who were musicians, artists, authors, and storytellers, so naturally, she loved to sing, draw and write. Ms. Holly earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Graphic Design and later Elementary Education from Kansas State University. She is a trained puppeteer, singer/songwriter, and watercolorist, and loves to draw especially with watercolor pencils. She saw the need for children to see the beauty of the natural world around them: the light, colors, shapes, and lines, and then be inspired to create what they saw. She created lessons for her class she calls “The Joy of Drawing from Real Life and Pictures”. Since 1994, she has been teaching children and adults to draw, paint, use pastel, and make original cards. She has always wanted to be an illustrator and children’s book writer, and to publish her poems and stories.
This year, her dreams are coming true. Her first self-published children’s book, with over 100 illustrations, along with students’ artwork from her Joy of Drawing Classes, Janey Olsen, Famous Artist of the Beach, has sold close to 100 copies in the first month. It showcases her method for teaching drawing in the location of the Atlantic Ocean on the Outer Banks of North Carolina through the eyes of 10-year-old Janey, who wants to hang her pictures in the family's booth at the area art show and become famous.
To see more of Ms. Holly’s watercolor cards, prints, and children’s books, view her website, HCFriesen.com. She has three grown daughters, five lively grandchildren and lives in the “Art House” in Kansas with her Russian Blue cat named Prussia. A few of her many writing awards: At age sixteen, her poem, “The Looking Glass,” about a cat who sees “The Other” in the mirror, was published in the Young Kansas Writers. Her short biography called Lestle Wilber Newcomer, the Kansas Man, won the Jesse Perry Stratford Award for Excellence in Historical Writing, presented by the Butler County Historical Society (1988).
H. C. Friesen: K-State Graduate, author, illustrator, watercolorist, and teacher of the Joy of Drawing Classes is excited to announce her self-published books are now ready for reading!
Holly Catherine Friesen grew up surrounded by Kansas relatives who were musicians, artists, authors, and storytellers, so naturally, she loved to sing, draw and write. Ms. Holly earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Graphic Design and later Elementary Education from Kansas State University. She is a trained puppeteer, singer/songwriter, and watercolorist, and loves to draw especially with watercolor pencils. She saw the need for children to see the beauty of the natural world around them: the light, colors, shapes, and lines, and then be inspired to create what they saw. She created lessons for her class she calls “The Joy of Drawing from Real Life and Pictures”. Since 1994, she has been teaching children and adults to draw, paint, use pastel, and make original cards. She has always wanted to be an illustrator and children’s book writer, and to publish her poems and stories.
This year, her dreams are coming true. Her first self-published children’s book, with over 100 illustrations, along with students’ artwork from her Joy of Drawing Classes, Janey Olsen, Famous Artist of the Beach, has sold close to 100 copies in the first month. It showcases her method for teaching drawing in the location of the Atlantic Ocean on the Outer Banks of North Carolina through the eyes of 10-year-old Janey, who wants to hang her pictures in the family's booth at the area art show and become famous.
To see more of Ms. Holly’s watercolor cards, prints, and children’s books, view her website, HCFriesen.com. She has three grown daughters, five lively grandchildren and lives in the “Art House” in Kansas with her Russian Blue cat named Prussia. A few of her many writing awards: At age sixteen, her poem, “The Looking Glass,” about a cat who sees “The Other” in the mirror, was published in the Young Kansas Writers. Her short biography called Lestle Wilber Newcomer, the Kansas Man, won the Jesse Perry Stratford Award for Excellence in Historical Writing, presented by the Butler County Historical Society (1988).
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April 2022 - Author Talk with Janice Northerns
"Finding Both Anchor and Sail through Ekphrastic Writing"
Whether you are new to ekphrasis or an old hand at it, the practice can offer both a concrete anchor to start a piece as well as a sail to push your writing in a new direction. Janice Northerns will read several ekphrastic poems from her award-winning collection Some Electric Hum and share tips to help you take ekphrastic writing to the next level. The discussion will be geared toward prose writers as well as poets.
Janice Northerns, of Liberal, is the author of Some Electric Hum, winner of the 2021 KAC Nelson Poetry Book Award, the KU Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award, and a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. The author grew up on a farm in rural West Texas and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas Tech University, where she received the Robert S. Newton Award for Creative Writing. Her work has been widely published in literary journals. Honors include a Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts residency, a Sewanee Writers’ Conference scholarship, and numerous awards for individual poems. Janice and her husband moved to Liberal in 1998, where she taught English at Seward County Community College before retiring in 2019 to write full-time. The landscapes and people of West Texas and southwest Kansas are a steady source of inspiration for her poetry.
www.janicenortherns.com
Members access the archived video recording on the "members only" pages.
March 2022 - Open Mic, Featured Reader Vickie Guillot, D4 President
February 2022
D3/D4 hosted the State Author Talk with Gretchen Eick.
Members access the archived video recording on the "members only" pages.
Our January 2022 Featured Reader:
Mike Matson is a lifelong Kansan who succeeded in a professional career touching various aspects of communications: Radio deejay, radio news, TV news, press secretary to a governor, systems advocacy, leadership development and newspaper columnist.
This career success paralleled an addiction-related downward trajectory highlighted by much of the drama one would associate with such behavior. This dichotomy is the premise of Courtesy Boy: A True Story of Addiction. Courtesy Boy comes on the heels of Matson’s first book, Spifflicated, a family memoir chronicling his father’s troubled, yet colorful childhood with alcoholic parents.
His motivation in writing the book is to help those suffering and their loved ones connect the dots between the destructive traits and behaviors – and the potential for addiction. In so doing, infuse some fresh air into the oppressive stigma that clings to addiction and mental health.
Matson lives where he was born, in Manhattan, Kansas, with his wife and two Australian Shepherds.
www.mikematson.com/
December 2021 Program
Nancy Julien Kopp on Writing the Personal Essay, with a side light for poets.
Nancy is the author of Writer Granny’s World, a blog of tips and encouragement for writers—writergrannysworld.blogspot.com. She is a 20+ year member of the Kansas Authors Club and 2013 Prose Writer of the Year. She has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul and many anthologies, newspapers, magazines, and ezines. A former teacher, Nancy continues to teach through the written word.
October 2021 Program
Kristine A. Polansky: Has last weekend’s convention encouraged you to encourage young writers?
Kris Polansky led a Zoom discussion on youth and writing, with an emphasis on ways we, as authors, can help teachers achieve classroom writing goals and how we can encourage the young writers in our own families. Kris shared several of her lesson plans, including one aimed at getting young students to “own” their poems (or other writings) when presenting them orally. That is a skill all of us can use!
September 2021 Open Mic
Featured Reader: Nancy Julien Kopp
Aug 2021 Program: Jolene Haas - Writing for Children