D5 member Robert L. Dean, Jr., is one of three featured authors at the Riverfront Readings series on Friday, April 8th, 2022, 8-9 PM, via Zoom. The other two readers are Cathleen & Tim Bascom. The Riverfront Readings are held monthly and are based in Kansas City, Missouri. The readings normally take place at The Writers Place, but have been Zooms since the pandemic started. This should be an enjoyable evening. Further details, and the link to register for the Zoom link, are found here:
 Our newest KAC member is . . . Kathleen Kaska. She's a Texan who lives in Washington state, BUT she has a Kansas publisher, Anamcara Press. Welcome, Kathleen! Here's a little info about Kathleen: Kathleen is a Texas gal. Except for an eighteen-month hiatus living in New York City after college, she continuously lived in the Lone Star State for fifty years. Since then, Texas has been hit and miss—a little hit, but a heck of a lot of miss. There was a time when she thought she would happily die in Austin, Texas. But circumstances and weather—especially weather—changed that. Now she spends most of the year on Fidalgo Island in Washington State, with a view of the bay and the mountains. When she gets homesick, she and her husband plug in the iPhone to Willie—as in Nelson. Soon they are dancing the two-step, imagining they are at their favorite honky-tonk in Tokio, Texas, where the mayor is believed to be a dog. Who wouldn’t miss that? Kathleen writes the humorous Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series set in the 1950s in historic hotels and the Kate Caraway Animal-Right Mystery Series. She also writes about Sherlock Holmes, birds, and quirky things that come to mind. Her blog, “Growing Up Catholic in a Small Texas Town,” sums it up. Murder at the Menger, her latest Lockhart mystery, will be released on June 26, 2022, by Anamcara Press. She is currently writing Murder at the Pontchartrain. www.kathleenkaska.com Kathleen is the owner of Metaphor Writing Coach, a mentoring and editing service for writers. www.metaphorwritingcoach.com   [cu]
 Today we have the pleasure of introducing Marian Riedy, a new member of the Kansas Authors Club. Here's a little bit about her: Marian is an attorney, professor emeritus of Emporia State University, entrepreneur, and, most recently, author of the legal thrillers Fatal Accusation (Black Rose Writing, 2020) and Surprise Witness, to be released June 16, 2022 (Black Rose Writing). She is a KU graduate (B.A.), obtained her J.D. from Harvard Law School, and has an MBA from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. She calls both Washington, D.C. and Kansas home. Her website is mariankriedy.com Welcome, Marian! [cu] To all members of Kansas Authors Club District 7: We are planning a Spring Convention of District 7 on Saturday, April 23, 2022 at the Clarion Inn in Garden City, KS. The street address is 1911 E. Kansas Avenue, Garden City, KS. We will meet about 11:30 a.m. in the Frances Room for an informal gathering with lunch on our own in the Frances Room and a formal presentation and meeting following. You are all invited to attend this Spring Convention and ask other authors or writers you know to attend also. Our guest speaker will be George Phillipy of Syracuse, KS. He recently published two books of truth and fiction entitled “Choices” Volumes 1 and 2. He will be reviewing them as well as speaking about his experience with publishing. He will also entertain questions at the end of his presentation. Please let me know if you plan to attend so we can get a count of people for the room setting. Use the contact for below. I would like to know if you are planning to attend by April 12. Sheryl Brenn, Treasurer KAC District 7  District 6 member Jared Vaughn invites you to join us in celebrating the release of Time Honored Productions' first kids book at the Tobias' Travels Book Launch event on April 2nd. Teenage author Shoshanna Aaliyah (District 5 member) and illustrator Raymond Burrows will both be there to sign copies at this fun event for all ages. Raymond will judge a coloring contest and provide face painting for the kids, and Shoshanna will read Tobias' Travels and her other stories. Popular comic con guest Kelly Carson will teach his Learn to Draw art class, and Jared Vaughn will teach The Art of Storytelling. These hour-long presentations are easy to follow, entertaining, and very informative for beginners and veterans alike. Shoshanna will also perform alongside Jared in a special musical reading of his acclaimed story, Invisible Touch, and in a segment called Script Blender, in which they and others will read scenes from popular movies in the voices of other characters. Video presentations, author appearances, and more surprises will further guarantee this to be a one-of-a-kind experience of learning and laughter for the whole family. Don't miss all the fun at: At the Market,
601 N West St in Wichita April 2 from 10-6. Free admission and lunch is provided. Good Afternoon,
I have good news. Yesterday, the Being Wichita Women book project reached our fundraising goal ($2,500) for our Kickstarter campaign. Hooray! But, if you know Liz Hamor of Center of Daring, then you know they inspire people to DREAM BIG. Today, the Center of Daring is encouraging us to go beyond our original goal. That is why they have agreed to match the first $200 we raise in donations. There are stories in the book by writers in the LGBTQ community, so what better time than during National LGBTQIA+ Health Awareness Week? In all transparency, we have met the sufficient goal to publish the Being Wichita Women book. Now, we are in a better place to utilize any additional funding to achieve two things: 1) Print more books (originally we budgeted to print 1,000). 2) Have a more flexible, strengthened budget for the book launch event. Will you help us dream big today? This is the last time you will be contacted about our Kickstarter! People are still allowed to pledge via the Kickstarter site, but we also accept Paypal, Venmo, and checks. Thank you for your consideration! Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/969458832/being-wichita-women-a-collection-of-powerful-stories Paypal: https://www.storiesbydanielle.com/donate Danielle Ramirez Being Wichita Women Saturday, March 26 at 7 pm a one-act, four-scenes play by Gretchen Eick about life in today's Turkey for peace activists will be performed at Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church, 655 N Lorraine, Wichita (2 blocks south of Kellogg and one block west of Hillside). It is free and appropriate for all ages. The play is performed by the Peace Committee of the church and especially relevant as we see the violations of human rights in Ukraine, Yemen, and elsewhere. Please come!
 Invitation from District 6. All KAC members are welcome to attend.
Mark your calendar. Fasten your seat belt. Get out your whoopee cushion. Author Mark Simmons, D6, will be our speaker, our entertainer, our thought-provoker, this coming Saturday, March 26, at 1:30 PM for our monthly D6 meeting on Zoom. Mark knows how to use humor. He will read some of his “stuff.” He’ll be leading participatory exercises, including 1) asking members & guests to tell a favorite joke (short ones), 2) asking us why we like the joke, 3) what makes it funny, & 4) who the ideal audience is for that joke. We’ll deconstruct humor—figuring out what makes it tick—and touch upon the challenges of writing humor during our latest pandemic. Mark has asked me to ask you to be thinking about what (or maybe who) has made you laugh the hardest . . . and why. Contact D6 President, Jim Potter, if you would like to receive the Zoom link to attend this meeting.  Carey Gillam (D2) is a veteran investigative journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering corporate news, including 17 years as a senior correspondent for Reuters international news service (1998-2015). She is the author of “Whitewash- The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science,” an expose of corporate corruption in agriculture. The book won the coveted Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists in 2018. Her second book, a narrative legal thriller titled The Monsanto Papers, was released March 2. 2021.
She also has contributed chapters for a text book about environmental journalism and a book about pesticide use in Africa. Gillam testified as an invited expert before the European Parliament in 2017 about her research, and was a featured speaker at the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg, France in 2019. She also has been a keynote and/or panel speaker at events and universities throughout North America, Australia, The Netherlands, Brussels, and France. Gillam writes regularly for The Guardian. Her work has additionally published in The New York Times, Huffington Post, Time, and other outlets. She also spent six years (2016-2021) working as researcher for the nonprofit investigative group US Right to Know. Gillam is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists and the North American Agricultural Journalists. D5 meets Saturday, April 9 at 1:30. We meet on Zoom and in person at 2801 W 15th St N, Wichita, KS. Click on the button below to join the meeting on Zoom. D5 member Robert L. Dean, Jr, will be reading at the 17th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival on the campus of East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. The festival runs from March 31st through April 2nd and features about 70 readers from all across the country. Dean reads at 2:15 PM on Friday, April 1st in the Estep Auditorium. The festival is free and open to all. Ada is about a four hour drive south from Wichita. This is Dean's third consecutive time reading at Scissortail (He read in 2018 & 2019; 2020 & 2021 were cancelled due to Covid). Dean will also be participating in a Zoom reading put on by Sheila-Na-Gig online. The reading is on Sunday, April 3rd, starting at 7 PM Central Time. The featured reader is Millicent Borges Accardi, after which there is a closed list group of open mic readers solicited by invitation which includes Dean. Dean has been published at least three times by Sheila-Na-Gig online. Anyone can attend this Zoom reading, but you must register beforehand. The link to the event page, which has the Zoom registration link is below.
 Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town is Cheryl Unruh’s (D2) latest masterpiece, a memoir written in prose poetry that transported me to my childhood. I too, grew up with bottle caps, firecrackers, collecting stamps, and reading wanted posters at the P.O. This memoir, dedicated to Cheryl’s father, Elgie Unruh of Pawnee Rock, is perfect. That means every word is precise. The walls at Great Bend hospital aren’t white; they’re “vanilla hallways.” Family members at the hospital aren’t nervous. Instead, “a hospital waiting room ages you overnight,” and cooking over a campfire wasn’t just fun for Cheryl; “we tasted adventure in every bite.” If you want adventure and delight without ever leaving your home tonight, read Gravedigger’s Daughter. It will improve your life. --Jim Potter (D6), author of Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery  Today we have the honor of introducing Jim Tiller of Olathe as the newest member of the Kansas Authors Club! Welcome, Jim!
We'll let Jim introduce himself. First, my full name is "James H. Tiller III". My official title is "Lt. Col James H Tiller, USAF, Ret". (Forgive the ego ride!) My wife Frances and I live in Olathe, Kansas (18 yrs and staying put). I am a hobby wood worker, we are avid square dancers and enjoy local theater presentations. Through out the years I have enjoyed music (classic and folk) art (tried to become one, failed) and during my first combat tour in Vietnam, I took up poetry. The result was 14 poems- mostly about my experiences in Nam but with 1 that sold to a North Dakota farmers magazine and the others published in the far east version of AF magazine (does that make me a published author? not likely.) One poem, written as my first wife neared death from Alzheimer's I submitted to a mensan poetry contest and got an honorable mention. Did I mention I am a mensan ? No longer dues paying. I have had this story floating in my mind for years. An incident that occurred at 35,000 ft, 100 miles south of the North Pole on an airborne alert mission carrying 2 nuclear weapons. It lasted about 3 secs., but in an effort to understand what happened I have slowly created a picture of a story. So finally, I decided to write the story. This is my first attempt at fiction writing. 5 chapters done, edited 4 times, and the realization I need help to see it I am doing it right. That led me to join. I hope for opportunities to get my efforts critiqued before I get too much further into this challenge. By the way, there is a hard cover book entitled "Because I Fly", a collection of aviation poetry, by Helmut H. Reda page 102. you will see it. It was written from the heart!! Jim Tiller [cu] Ronda shared samples of her poetry and other poems that inspire her at the March D5 meeting. She also led attendees in four separate writing exercises, each followed by a time for sharing. A recording of her presentation has been edited and posted on YouTube. The recording pauses only briefly after each prompt. We encourage you to stop the recording and spend ten minutes writing using each prompt.
Notice of meeting held: KAC elected officers Tracy Million Simmons, Kristine Polansky, Monica Graves, and Cathy Callen met via Zoom on Thursday, February 10, 2022, to discuss KAC issues and begin preparations for the spring Board meeting. That meeting will be held by Zoom at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 26th. An agenda will be published on the website prior to that date, and all KAC members are welcome to attend. Issues discussed at this pre-meeting included the handling of KAC funds, Financial Officer reporting requirements, a review of the budget to be published in the yearbook and presented to the board at the spring meeting, the distribution of funds to KAC districts, and a possible change to secretary note requirements for the yearbook. Other items will be added to the agenda, such as a new Chapbook contest, questions about future sponsorship of the youth awards book, a memorial gift in honor of past president, Prem Bajaj, and any changes recommended to the current job descriptions for elected officers. Save the Date: Saturday, March 26, 2022 @ 10:00am
Kansas Authors Club Spring Board Meeting March 26 Meeting Agenda (tentative as of 3/1/2022) Call to Order Reading and Approval of October 2021 Board Minutes Reports of Officers, standing committees, special committees
New Business:
Announcements:
Next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, August 13, 10am (via Zoom). Adjournment ### District 2 invites all members to their March Meeting. Please join us March 19th, 2022 10:00am-12:00pm Flint Hills Tech College 3301 W. 18th Ave Emporia, KS Attend in person or via Zoom (complete form below by March 18, 5pm, to assure you get a Zoom link to attend.)
Brenda White is a native of Emporia, Kansas, but her heart resides on the family farm in Morris County. Her favorite place in Kansas is the woods and creek on the farm. There she has seen snakes fishing in a puddle and found a baby western box turtle at the natural spring feeding into the creek. She has had poetry published in Quivira and The Flint Hills Review. What she loves most about living in Kansas is the beauty of the Flint Hills and the state motto, Ad Astra per Aspera, “to the stars through difficulties.” Her first book of poetry, Blue Collar Saint, was published Fall 2021, by Meadowlark Press.
Two D5 members, Robert L. Dean, Jr. and Roy Beckemeyer, have work in the new issue of MacQueen's Quinterly, Issue 12, March 2022. The issue came out on March 10th. Both Bob and Roy have appeared frequently in this journal and love it when they both appear in the same issue. Dean's poem is titled "Any Little Sure Thing." Beckemeyer's poems are "Grieving" and "Opening Shutters." Direct links to all three poems are below.
D5 member Robert L. Dean, Jr.'s chapbook Pulp with Finishing Line Press, will go to press on July 8th. Pre-orders for the book are being taken now through May 17th at the Finishing Line Press website. The direct link to Dean's book is given below. D5 member Martha Wherry did the cover art, and did a great job. The book takes its impetus from the old "pulp" magazines, such as True Crime, True Romance, etc., and the invention of paper made from pulp by the first century CE Chinese inventor Cai Lun. Read the blurbs at the site to get more feel for the book. Pre-orders are greatly encouraged. For any questions about pre-ordering, please contact Robert Dean either via email at: [email protected] or message him on Face Book. Dean has two full-length poetry books out; this is the first time Dean has done a chapbook.  Janice Northerns (D-7), of Liberal, will read several poems, including “The Bleeding Edge,” winner of the 2021 River Heron Review Editors’ Prize, at a Zoom poetry reading at 6 p.m. (CST) Mar. 10, 2022. Janice 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 poetry reading is sponsored by River Heron Review and will also include the four finalists in the contest. The Zoom event is free and open to the public, but you must register AHEAD OF TIME to receive the meeting information and password. Click HERE to register.   Ronda Miller has 4 books of Poetry and a beautiful prize-winning children's picture book, I Love the Child. Ronda is a life coach whose specialty is helping others deal with trauma. Her work and life experience make her an amazingly helpful coach and writer and an effective critic of others’ writing. She will be both sharing some of her own work and talking about what she has learned about how to write memoirs and fiction that are powerful and moving and don’t ignore the traumas that shape us. You will not want to miss her presentation at 1:30-3:30, March 12 at Asbury Methodist Church on 15th Street West in Wichita. Come in person or watch online through Zoom.
Saturday March 12 at 1:30 either in person or via Zoom. In Person: at Asbury Church, 2801 W. 15th St., Wichita. During Feb 2022, Herrmann was published in:
'Naked in America,' a short story, posted on the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature site. Responses to four prompts were posted at Carrot Ranch in the Congress of Rough Writers. Larry's Coffee website posted two poems: 'Chicken Creek Road,' and 'Night Necklaces.' Spine and Page website posted five poems and one memoir. The Adirondack Center for Writing posted responses to three prompts. Tokens, a literary journal, published the poem: 'Messenger of Joy' in the Winter 2021 issue. The memoir, 'Mistaken Word,” was published in the anthology: It Was a Mistake by Free Spirit press. Two poems: 'Tornado Surprise' and 'Unexpected Visit' were posted by Gonzo Press with three more scheduled in March. The Story Commons site posted three brief memoirs. And, on Feb 28, Tiny Seed Literary Journal posted the poem: 'Role Fulfilled' on their site. |
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