10 Year Members
Sylvia S. Colombo
Marilyn Hope Lake, Ph.D.
Louise Click
Jolene Haas
Dan Close
Victoria Hermes-Bond
Kenneth Neel Holler
Paula K. Nixon

The new I-70 Review is out! Congratulations to the following Kansas Authors Club members who were published in this issue: Roy Beckemeyer (D5), Robert Dean (D5), Kevin Rabas (D2), Tyler Robert Sheldon (D2), Wyatt Townley (D2).
 
Order your copy from the I-70 Review website!
 
Have we missed anyone? Please send an email if there are additional members who should be listed here.
 

Joyce Long loves to write about life. She writes about her puppet, Zorts, and her challenges in life. She has been a member of Kansas Authors Club for many years. She has served as president of District 3 and helped get the writers group in Cherryvale started. She has served on several convention committees.

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

Nancy Julien Kopp

Nancy joined Kansas Authors Club in 1999 and has been an active member of District 4 serving as secretary/ treasurer, president, and convention coordinator in various years. Nancy has been a frequent convention presenter of workshops and she maintains a blog, “Writer Granny's World,” where she posts daily columns filled with advice and tips for writers. Nancy also fills the role of contributor on the Kansas Authors Club Facebook page.

Nominated by Tracy Million Simmons, D2

Nancy Julien Kopp exemplifies Service, Achievement and Special Accomplishment. Any of the three awards would be appropriate. Her service to the writing community—and the Kansas Authors Club specifically—can be seen on a day-to-day basis via the encourage she gives to writers in her daily blog, WRITERGRANNYSWORLD.BLOGSPOT.COM which she generously shares through postings on the Kansas Authors Club Facebook page. In Manhattan, she will step in on a moment’s notice to moderate the Prairie Star Writing Group which meets at Meadowlark Hills. She is the KAC District 4 “Go-To” person when it comes to organizing district meetings and state conventions and she adds a graciousness to those events. When called upon to moderate a meeting or a banquet, she does so with kind efficiency, having put a lot of thought into the needs of the people producing and attending those events. She served as KAC District 4 President in 2014 and 2015 and as Treasurer in 2012 and 2013. She was Convention Coordinator in 2018, the year District 4 hosted the annual KAC convention. She has shared her writing expertise repeatedly by putting on workshops at numerous Kansas Authors Club conventions. And she has shown thoughtful consideration of various issues affecting the Kansas Authors Club.  She exemplifies service.

She leads by example. She writes and she writes and she writes. And she shares her writing. In addition to blogging since 2007, she has had pieces published in 22 Chicken Soup for the Soul books. She has won numerous KAC writing awards and was honored as Prose of Writer of the Year in 2013. It is time to honor Nancy Julien Kopp for her service and her many accomplishments, which is why I am nominating her for the 2019 Service Award and suggesting that she is a person to consider for the Achievement and Special Accomplishment Awards as well.

Nominated by: Kristine A. Polansky, D4

An accomplished journalist, award-winning poet and writer define my nomination of Ronda Miller for the Achievement Award. Not only successful in her own endeavors, she is an avid peer supporter for all genres as well. Ronda is the first to volunteer and serves as a dedicated leader for KAC. proving that if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. 

Nominated by Vicki Julian, D2

Nancy Julien Kopp, District 4 member, has been blogging about writing for 10 years! Her posts are full of great advice and encouragement for writers. You may sign up to receive emails when Nancy updates or become a "follower" of her blog, https://writergrannysworld.blogspot.com/