The deadline for submitting entries to the 2022 yearbook has been extended. Members now have until December 31 to enter. 

• Every Member having paid current dues is invited to submit ONE literary contribution for the yearbook. That submission can be either prose or poetry. Prose is limited to one printed page (no more than 500 words). Poetry is limited to one printed page (no more than 40 lines including spaces between verses).

 

• All literary contributions remain the property of the individual authors. Authors may continue to use or distribute their work without requesting permission from the Kansas Authors Club. No work printed in the KAC yearbook may be copied or distributed in any form without explicit permission from the author.

 

• Yearbook Submissions are preferred via the online site, Submittable. There is NO CHARGE to submit a yearbook entry.

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District 6 Meetings are held on the 4th Saturday of each month (except December), online via Zoom at 1:30 p.m. Questions? Contact Jim Potter for a meeting link.

 Jared Vaughn started writing stories at the age of nine, including terrible sequels to Back to the Future. By 2014, he'd written stories, songs, skits, and just about anything but a book. So he set out to write The Longest Time, a story that had been in his mind for fifteen years. He released it in 2017, dressed as Marty McFly at his first booth at a comic con. The Longest Time received unanimously positive reviews from readers of all ages who appreciated the story's nostalgic appeal, heart, humor, and positive message as well as a genre-bending twist that takes everyone by surprise. Through his company, Time Honored Productions, he next published a collection of short stories called Free Time Tales. It featured nine other local writers including Shoshanna Aaliyah, a young lady who also wrote Tobias' Travels, which is releasing soon as a kid's book. Another Time, the sequel to The Longest Time, was released in 2020 to reviews that compared it as equal in quality to the original or even better. The Time Honored team can be seen at many events throughout the year sharing their creativity and the Power of Love. They continue to grow with artists, cosplayers, actors, and authors including the recent addition of acclaimed author Lynn Main.

  In 2021, Jared joined the Kansas Authors Club and was introduced to a new circle of talent. He was invited to be the guest speaker for the November 27th Zoom meeting for District 6 and enthusiastically accepted. Jared will share tips about what he feels is the most important part of writing-- the art of storytelling. His fun and informative presentation has been utilized at writing workshops and author panels and proven effective for all ages and levels of experience. ​

Tuesday, November 9, 2021, at 7:00 p.m., is “OPEN MIKE NIGHT” via Zoom. Kris Polansky will start off by reading the poems that made her “Poet of the Year” for Kansas Authors Club. There are six of them, but they are short. So we need many more readers. Come sign in at 7:00. Sharing is what writing is all about!
 
Do you have an award-winning entry to share from the 2021 KAC Literary Contest? Or one from an earlier contest? Or a “should-have-won” of which you are proud? Or something you are working on? We want to hear it!
 
This and other 2nd Tuesday Zoom Meetings jointly provided by KAC Districts 3 and 4 are open to all KAC members. The Zoom link has been sent to members via email through your district president or district email announcement list.

Join Julie A. Sellers, and other members of District 1, at the group's regular monthly meeting on Saturday, November 20 at 1 p.m.  This will be the first in-person meeting the district has held in more than a year. It will be held in the Menninger Room of the Topeka Shawnee County Public Library and is limited to only ten attendees due to social distancing requirements.

Sellers was named the 2020 Kansas Authors Club Prose Writer of the Year. She will be discussing The
Two I’s of writing: inspiration and intentionality. Julie will share tips for looking for inspiration (ideas), and techniques she uses to be intentional about writing. Attendees will have the opportunity to try out some of these techniques by participating in short writing activities.
 
Julie is the author of three academic monographs on Dominican music and identity, and her creative prose and poetry have appeared in publications such as 105 Meadowlark Reader, Cagibi, Wanderlust, The Very Edge, and Kansas Time + Place. Her collection, Kindred Verse: Poems Inspired by Anne of Green Gables (Blue Cedar Press) was released in 2021.

​Anyone wishing to join the meeting via zoom should email Anne Spry for the link.

This starts Monday, November 1st!

Please join us each Monday for the month of November for NaNoWriMo  (1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd and the 29th) for encouragement and ideas.  

We’ll meet in a private room at Perkins restaurant, 1711 W 23rd St., Lawrence, KS  66046, from 4 to 6 p.m.

Please rsvp by Sunday as I’ll need to let Perkins’ staff know how many of us to expect. 

I plan to send reminders each week. 

Do you have a friend who enjoys writing? Please invite them. 

You need not write a novel. Feel free to write whatever you’ve been wanting to. Our group will hold each other accountable, over pie no less! 

Not familiar with it? 
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https://www.masterclass.com/articles/tips-for-national-novel-writing-month-success


Sincerely,
Ronda Miller, District 2 Member

Tuesday, October 12, 2021, at 7:00 p.m., Kris Polansky will be leading 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 will share 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!

This and other 2nd Tuesday Zoom Meetings jointly provided by KAC Districts 3 and 4 are open to all KAC members. As noted in the District section of the KAC website, contact KAC email for the meeting link. 

To All KAC members, dues paid:

Updated meeting location!!
District 2's September meeting will be in Ronda Miller's backyard at 214 Lawrence Ave. in Lawrence from 10:00 - 12:00 on Saturday September 18, 2021. Due to Covid, there will not be a bathroom available, but Ronda will have water.

Our featured presenter will be District 2 Member, Beth Gruver Gulley.

Finding Inspiration in Everyday Objects

She will use her book, The Sticky Note Alphabet, to illustrate the ways mundane objects can trigger memories that in turn can lead to meaningful poems. Sometimes setting parameters for our writing, for example writing daily or trying new forms, can push us to notice the beauty in everyday objects as well.

Beth Gulley lives in Spring Hill, Kansas and teaches writing at Johnson County Community College. She has an MA from UMKC and a PhD from the University of Kansas. When not writing about teaching, Beth primarily writes poetry.

Her latest book, The Sticky Note Alphabet (from Alien Buddha Press), reminds us that small things are not always unimportant things. In December, her book Dragon Eggs will be published by Spartan Press. Her older work includes the 2018 chapbook, $!*# Hole Countries: A Find and Replace Meditation.

Her poetry and stories also appear in the Bards Against Hunger Anthology, From Everywhere a Little: A Migration Anthology, the Thorny Locust, and The Gasconade Review Presents: Storm A’Comin’, Kansas Letters to a Young Poet, and the 105 Meadowlark Reader. She has been a proud member of the Facebook group 365 Poems in 365 Days since 2015, and her poems appear in all three of the 365 Poems in 365 Days anthologies.
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Beth serves on the Riverfront Reading Committee and is a Writer’s Place board member. She loves thrift store shopping, traveling, and drinking coffee.

Gretchen Eick will be speaking on a panel at the Kansas Book Festival about writing books that treat controversial subjects and/or historical material that is little known by the general public. She will be using her latest book as her case in point: They Met at Wounded Knee: The Eastmans' Story (University of Nevada, 2020).

She has had two articles accepted for publication in the first two issues by 105 Meadowlark Reader: A Kansas Journal of Creative Nonfiction.

She is revising the sequel to her historical novel Maybe Crossings for publication in early 2022. The sequel is set in 2019 with a working title When the Road Splayed.

She will be speaking to the District 5 KAC group Saturday, October 16 at 1:30 on researching and writing historical fiction and nonfiction.
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Members, don't forget to claim your page in the 2022 yearbook!

Deadline: October 15, 2021

Due Between August 1 and October 15, 2021, electronic receipt or postmark

• Every Member having paid current dues is invited to submit ONE literary contribution for the yearbook. That submission can be either prose or poetry. Prose is limited to one printed page (no more than 500 words). Poetry is limited to one printed page (no more than 40 lines including spaces between verses).
• All literary contributions remain the property of the individual authors. Authors may continue to use or distribute their work without requesting permission from the Kansas Authors Club. No work printed in the KAC yearbook may be copied or distributed in any form without explicit permission from the author.
• Yearbook Submissions are preferred via the online site, Submittable. There is NO CHARGE to submit a yearbook entry.

​

1. Prepare your document as you normally would for print submission.
2. The link for submission is: kansasauthorsclub.submittable.com
3. Complete required information. (Name, address, etc.)
4. Select file and upload for submission.

About D3/D4 Meetings:

• Monthly meetings are held via Zoom on the second Tuesday of each and begin at 7:00pm Central Time
• Zoom details are the same every month (Contact KAC email for meeting link)
• This information shall be posted on the website for anyone to access
• If a program leader or featured reader wishes, they may send a reminder email to district 3&4 members a couple of days in advance using the group email list.
• All KAC members are welcome

District 7 Kansas Authors Club meeting (Fall Convention)
 
            All members of District 7 Kansas Authors Club and other interested writers and authors are invited to the Fall Convention of the club in Colby, Kansas on Saturday, September 25th, 2021 at City Limits Bar and Restaurant, 2227 S. Range Ave., Colby, beginning at 11:30 a.m. 

There will be lunch on your own from a limited menu at the venue then a program with a speaker and awards for the winners of the Summer Writing Contest held by District 7. Bring a piece of your writing if you want to participate in the Read-A-Round.

There is no fee to attend the Convention other than your meal. Come and enjoy an afternoon of fellowship and information and meet other writers from the area!  There is limited seating so please RSVP to Sheryl Brenn at 785-443-1066. 

​Writing Retreat in the Paola Community Garden
September 15 from 6:00-7:00 p.m.
1201 Industrial Drive, Paola, KS 66071
 
Are you looking for inspiration? Do you need a few quiet minutes to yourself? Bring your lawn chair and a notebook to the Paola Community Garden on September 15 from 6-7 p.m. for a writing retreat. We will begin our evening with writing prompts to inspire you. Then participants will have space and time to write in the garden. We will finish the evening with an opportunity to share our writing with the group (this is optional). This event is hosted by District 2 member, Beth Gulley. For more information email Beth. or see the Facebook event link.

Thea Rademacher, J.D., will provide the August program during the regular District 1 zoom meeting on Aug. 21 at 1:00 p.m. This is a rescheduled program that was originally for the July meeting. Thea is a D-1 member, an attorney and the founder of Flint Hills Publishing. She will also be presenting a workshop at the October KAC convention.
Non-members of District 1 who would like to sit in on next Saturday's program should contact D-1 President Anne Spry for a link.
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