The following Kansas Authors Club members had essays selected for publication in the first issue of 105: Meadowlark Reader, a Kansas journal of creative nonfiction. Issue #1, with the theme of "beginnings," is expected to be delivered to subscribers in early May, featuring 35 essays, including the following:

Gretchen Eick - D5
Marie Fletcher - D7
Beth Gulley - D2
Miriam Iwashige - D6
Nancy Julien Kopp - D4
Sandee Lee - D5
Don Marler - D5
Ruth Maus - D1
Julie Nischan - D1
Kevin Rabas - D2
Mark Scheel - D2
Julie Sellers - D4
Tyler Sheldon - D2
Julie Stielstra - D6
Barbara Waterman-Peters - D1
Jon Yenser - D7
Gloria Zachgo - D5
Ginger Zyskowski - D6

Cheryl Unruh (D2) of Quincy Press is the editor of the new journal, and Tracy Million Simmons (D2) of Meadowlark Press is the publisher. Readers are encouraged to subscribe before March 1 to take advantage of introductory pricing. 

For those interested in submitting essays for issue #2, the theme will be "Kansas Travel Stories" and they will begin collecting those submissions in May and June of 2021

See 105meadowlarkreader.com for complete details.

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.

When: Feb 13, 2021 01:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
 
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqc-yopjwoHN2ioy00kkxQgCeOpVsOReY9
 
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
​

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kansas Authors Club during the first weekend in October broke new ground when it hosted its first ever virtual writers convention.

The oldest statewide writers organization in the United States (chartered 1904) has held an annual writers convention almost every year since 1905. War intervened on two occasions. Disease now threatened to do the same.

Typically, the site of the convention rotates between KAC’s seven districts. This year’s convention, “Writing Across Kansas . . . A Sense of Place,” originally was planned by District 7 to take place in Colby.

“Instead, we met in the comfort of our members’ homes,” Duane Johnson, KAC president said.

As the deadly disease spread across the United States, Johnson realized in May that the convention might need to be cancelled.

“I was in close contact with convention planners, so I knew how hard they had worked to put together an impressive lineup of speakers and workshop leaders,” Johnson said. “I knew I would be letting them and the rest of our 250-plus members down unless I found an alternative.”

The solution—video-conferencing the event—Johnson said, was obvious. Figuring out how to do it was not.
He spent a month reading online articles and watching Zoom webinars on webinars. Then he assembled a four-member “zoom team” to host the convention. The team, Carol Yoho, Curtis Becker, and Tracy Million-Simmons, met each week to strategize, rehearse, and role-play. A mock webinar was held with as many of the workshop leaders as could attend. Team members then met with workshop leaders, who had various levels of experience with Zoom, in blocks of two or three to make sure everyone knew what to expect and were up to speed. They even hired a videoconference specialist from The WebiNerd.

“We were pioneering unfamiliar terrain, and we had to get it right the first time,” Johnson said. “No Mulligans allowed.”

All the while, they coordinated their efforts with the convention committee and contest managers.

A normal Kansas Authors Club conference consists of 12 to 15 workshops, some presented two or three times; keynote speakers; presentation of awards for children’s writing contests, adult writing contests, and newly released books in several categories; a state board meeting; annual members meeting; and an awards banquet.

“For the better part of two days, multiple events are going on simultaneously,” Johnson said. “How the devil were we going to duplicate that with a video-conference?”

The solution: purchasing not one, but two webinar add-ons to the group’s Zoom account. During the convention, the team split into two two-member teams on each webinar.

“We had to ditch the banquet and postpone the board and members meetings to the next weekend, but we got everything else in,” Johnson said. “We even set up a virtual bookroom for members to sell their books and a silent auction.”

The WebiNerd specialist recommended direct cable-to-computer connections to guard against the instability of Wi-Fi, and head-sets. As a result, each zoom team member had out-of-pocket expenses to go with the hours of time they contributed. At least one team member also had to purchase a web-cam.

Johnson said the convention, which featured Kansas Poet Laureate Huascar Medina and Academy award-winning playwright Kevin Wilmott, experienced a few minor glitches, but everyone seemed pleased with the outcome.
“My most terrifying moment came during Rich Hawkins’ “Writing for Radio” workshop when the lights blinked off for a second and I lost my connection,” Johnson said. “I went into panic mode until I realized that Carol was still supporting the webinar on her end. When I reconnected five minutes later, everything was fine. No one even knew I was gone.”

He said the best part of the experience for him was the bond the four zoom team members formed with each other as they trained each other.

​“We laughed a lot,” he said. “I think we all had a good time as we taught each other how to do something KAC has never done before. I look forward to when we can get together over a six-pack. And corn chips. And M&Ms. That’s an inside joke.” 

On any given day in any given year this century, Tracy Million Simmons can be found doing something that contributes to Kansas Authors Club. Whether it is working with Reaona Hemmingway, Carol Yoho and sometimes others to write our newsletters and create our annual yearbook—a monumental task in itself; or maintaining and coordinating work on the KAC website; or collaborating with contest managers to find judges and help them and all the rest of us in myriad ways prepare for our annual convention; or overseeing Submittable; or doing half a dozen other tasks that I’m forgetting about, Tracy distinguishes herself year in and year out as Kansas Authors Club’s most indispensable worker bee.

Sometimes I imagine that we will one day discover her dirty little secret, that she is actually identical twins.

But in this year of the Pandemic, Tracy has outdone even Tracy in utilizing her innovative skills to pioneer two more features that will become welcome and established components of Kansas Author Club from this point forward.

First, she has extended our use of Submittable account, which she pioneered, by utilizing it for convention registration, thus simplifying and streamlining the process.

Second, she has created a virtual book room for KAC members on the issuu.com website. Not only does this mitigate our inability to have a physical book room for this year’s convention, but it means that KAC members will be able to exhibit and sell their books online not just once a year but 24/7 into the foreseeable future.

And she did this, along with everything else she does, while also playing a key role along with Carol Yoho and Curtis Becker on the Webinar team that, together with this year’s convention committee, made it possible to hold this year’s annual convention.

By the sheer volume of the work she does year in and year out, Tracy would qualify for a special service award every year, but this year it would be a major oversight if we did not recognize her with a Special Award for Particular Accomplishment for her innovative work on convention registration and for creating KAC’s own virtual book room.

Presented by Duane Johnson, 2020 State President

Duane Johnson (D1) has been a member of Kansas Authors Club since 2014. He served as the president of District 1 in 2017-2018, state Vice President and book awards chair in 2019, and he took the helm as state President this year, 2020. I know that Duane had a vision for Kansas Authors Club when he accepted the role of President. As an active board member, he’d been taking notes on ways to modernize our organization, but I don’t imagine he expected to take this giant step forward to a full virtual convention format in less than a year. It would have been very easy to say, “Sorry folks, no convention in the time of COVID-19.” Duane studied, recruited a crew, and hired a tutor to get us up to speed. His organizational skills helped us develop and define what you are experiencing here this weekend. Thanks to Duane Johnson, we’ve enjoyed an October weekend with our writing family. I submit Duane Johnson for a merit award for service to Kansas Authors Club.
 
-presented by Tracy Million Simmons

Jim Potter became a member of Kansas Authors Club in 2015. He became president of District 6 in 2019, and has recruited at least 28 members to the organization since that time. Jim led the way in transitioning to Zoom meetings in 2020, the first of our seven districts to do so. In fact, his district began meeting twice a month, once for a program and once for a read around. Jim has been a dedicated leader on behalf of his district and our state organization. I submit Jim Potter (D6) for a merit award for service to Kansas Authors Club.
 
-presented by Tracy Million Simmons

Sept. 15, 2020 - President Duane Johnson is pleased to announce that the Kansas Authors Club was selected as a recipient of The Literary Arts Emergency Fund grant, awarded by by the Academy of American Poets, the Community of Literary Magazine & Presses, and the National Book Foundation. Johnson applied for the grant when it became apparent that, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the in-person, annual convention would not be able to take place as usual.

Johnson spearheaded a committee of four to train to host the convention online. With Curtis Becker, Tracy Million Simmons, and Carol Yoho, the organization's October convention will take place virtually, via Zoom webinars, for the first time.

Kansas Authors Club was one of 282 literary organizations that received funding from this grant. The funds are provided to support the software licensing, support services, and training the committee has undergone to bring the convention to members throughout the state of Kansas and beyond.

More about the award can be found at The Literary Hub.