When she isn’t writing, Cheryl can be found walking at sunrise, voraciously reading, traveling with her family, practicing the piano, and finding new ways to incorporate beauty into her life. She currently lives with her family in the Flint Hills of Kansas and is pursuing her Master of Music degree at Kansas State University.
Cheryl Seely Savage is a professional musician, poet, graduate student, and mother of eight children. She has been published in Exponent II, Inscape, Manhattan Neighbors Magazine, and was shortlisted for the 2022 Lascaux Prize in Poetry. In addition, Cheryl has been the inspiration for several musical compositions, most notably by Dr. Alyssa Morris. She has four poetry publications: Give Me a Fragment, Carve a Place for Me, We Have Time, and Shadowing. Shadowing was recently published in January. It’s available online or at The Dusty Bookshelf in Manhattan.
When she isn’t writing, Cheryl can be found walking at sunrise, voraciously reading, traveling with her family, practicing the piano, and finding new ways to incorporate beauty into her life. She currently lives with her family in the Flint Hills of Kansas and is pursuing her Master of Music degree at Kansas State University.
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Presented by the Kansas Authors Club, the Author Publishing Bootcamp is bound to provide some fruitful publishing information for every type of author. Whether you’re someone who has struggled to ink a deal with a small press or one of the Big 5, or if you’ve mustered enough courage and determination to try your hand at publishing your own book, this boot camp is for you.
Attendees are invited to attend four zoom sessions which will start with topics pre-recorded by our presenters and end with Q&A time with the presenters. All ticket holders will have access to the pre-recorded workshops and recordings of the Q&A portions of the sessions. Presentations will cover a wide-range of author publishing topics including all of the ins and outs related to preparing a manuscript publication, a breakdown of the design and print processes, marketing and branding post-publication, and much more. Those presenting are considered experts in their respective fields as it relates to the world of publishing in today’s economic and technologically advanced climate. Even better, all panelists are Kansas Authors Club members you can trust and feel free to reach out to for more information. June 21, 2025 - 1:30 p.m. Program: Goal Setting for Authors Whether you're just starting your writing journey or navigating the complexities of a multi-project career, having clear goals can transform your writing life. In this session, we’ll explore practical strategies for setting and tracking meaningful goals as an author. You’ll learn how to align your goals with your values, break big dreams into manageable steps, and build habits that support long-term success. Perfect for writers at any stage, this workshop will help you move forward with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Presenter: Abbi Lee has always found joy within the world of a book. In grade school, she remembers regularly riding her bike to her small town library to check out the next book in the A to Z Mysteries series. As an adult, she taught high school English and Social Studies before turning her full attention to writing. Abbi now works as a copywriter for a marketing agency, has been published in multiple magazines, and recently released Ghost Town Treasure Hunt, the first novel in her debut middle-grade series, Geocache Club, with Chicken Scratch Books. Outside of reading and writing, Abbi also enjoys cooking new recipes, geocaching for hidden treasures, and going on adventures with her husband and two daughters. Sign-in required. Members also received a link to the monthly program in their monthly email newsletter.
“Nothing could have prepared me for being diagnosed with a rare and deadly eye cancer in the middle of trying to save the Kansas land where my husband and I live,” Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg writes of her new memoir, The Magic Eye: A Story of Saving a Life and a Place in the Age of Anxiety. Harriet Lerner calls The Magic Eye "....a luminous, poetic meditation on survival, community, and resilience. With tenderness and humor, her memoir speaks to the fierce beauty of holding on to life, to land, and to hope when the odds seem insurmountable. A deeply human story, this book is a testament to courage and the power of place that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.”
The Magic Eye encompasses a mythic, quirky, and timely journey with a cast of unforgettable friends that make surviving the odds—both the danger of invasive cancer in a body and invasive development vying for tallgrass prairie—possible. Crossing through the pandemic, this memoir is guided by tenderness, curiosity, and more than a dash of magic as Mirriam-Goldberg writes of giving endangered turtles names such as Gandalf and Harrison Ford, undergoing surgery to insert a radioactive disk in her eye, outsmarting a tornado, and the Rube Goldberg contraption of the body. Read a feature on The Magic Eye by Max McCoy here: https://kansasreflector.com/2025/06/08/in-a-forthcoming-memoir-a-kansas-writer-sees-the-land-and-herself-anew/. Please check out Caryn’s book tour, including a launch July 17th at the Raven Bookstore and many readings around and beyond Kansas: https://www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com/magic-eye Sheree L. Wingo is now the assistant editor/staff writer/office manager of the St. Francis Herald/Bird City Times newspaper in Cheyenne County. She writes and photographs most of the newspaper. Sheree says, "This a dream come true job!!" CONGRATULATIONS, Sheree!from your friends and fellow writers at
Kansas Authors Club. A very important Kansas Authors Club deadline is coming up. We would like to encourage you to submit nominations for our annual Awards of Merit. You may complete the form online.
Each year awards are presented to members for:
Please take a look at your fellow members and help us recognize those who go the extra mile for the literary community of Kansas. These awards are presented during the Annual Meeting of the General Membership in October. Here again is the link to the nomination form online: https://www.kansasauthorsclub.org/awards-of-merit.html On the third Saturday of October, an Annual Meeting of the General Membership is held via Zoom. All members are encouraged to attend. Invitations will be sent via member email newsletters and posted on the website. Kansas Authors Club
Annual Writing Contests Open for Submissions April 1 through June 15 All residents of the state of Kansas are invited to enter the annual literary contests of the Kansas Authors Club. Entries in 18 categories of prose and poetry are accepted April 1 to June 15 with cash prizes presented at the Kansas Authors Club Writing Retreat on October 5, 2025. Winners who cannot attend the awards ceremony will receive awards by mail after the event. All residents of the state of Kansas are welcome to enter, and those who are members get discounted entry fees. Members of the club may reside anywhere in Kansas and beyond. Read the guidelines. Member Robert Phillips shares news about his new book. I want to share with everyone how my book came about, Big Boys Don't Cry: My Audio-Reader story. About three years ago my wife and I retired, after selling our Bed and Breakfast/Wedding Venue we moved into Lawrence. My world stopped urning and my life turned to depression, anxiety, aggravated by PTSD brought on by my experiences in Vietnam. Nothing to do to occupy my time and get my thoughts going in a positive direction. My VA advisor, Dawn Claus suggested the Audio-Reader Program. I failed to mention I am legally blind and do not drive any more. This only acerbated my situation. With my wife’s encouragement I started receiving taped books from the Kansas state Audio-Reader in Emporia. I started seeing improvement in my mental health after being able to immerse my mind in these stories and forget my negative thoughts lingering in the depths of my brain. This even started helping me get my thoughts off some of the physical pain, I was experiencing. It wasn’t long before I had listened to all the books I really liked, that was memoirs of people living in Kansas in rural communities, especially about children growing up on farms. I kept kidding Maggie Wattie at the Emporia Audio-Book Library that I was going to write a book about me growing up near Virgil, Kansas and have it recorded. I am sure she was thinking to herself and maybe telling some of her co-workers, “You won’t believe what this crazy man told me he was going to do. Now it is three years later and the book is written and that crazy man, now eighty years old has teamed up with the Audio-Reader Program here in Lawrence to launch this book. My contact person here is Martha Kehr. Listener outreach coordinator at Audio-Reader, University of Kansas. I hope my experience will help other people learn about the Audio-Reader Program and maybe help put their minds in a more favorable state as it did me. Without the help of my wife Beverly, my friends and family, the great medical support both physical and mental provided by the Veteran Administration and the Audio Reader program this story would not have been told. My hat is off to you all. For those of you who don’t qualify for the Audio-Reader Program this book can be purchased at a number of independent book stores and of course on line from Amazon. Not quite yet. In a few more weeks. Robert W Phillips, Rp
Published Author "Big Boys Don't Cry" www.robertwphillips.com Volunteer, Audio-Reader, KU
GRINNELL, Kan. (KSNW) — When a tornado ripped through the small town of Grinnell last month, it left behind shattered homes, a ruined church, and the loss of another vital piece of the community — the school library.
In a social media appeal from the State Library of Kansas, the Moore Family Library and the Northwest Kansas Library System are calling on Kansans to help restock the shelves with gently used children’s picture books, chapter books, and young adult titles. The donations will be used to rebuild the school’s library and classroom collections ahead of the fall semester, when students return to class in a temporary building. Organizers say donated books won’t just fill shelves — they’ll help restore a sense of stability for children returning to school after disaster. Book donations can be sent to: Northwest Kansas Library System 2 Washington Square Norton, KS 67654 Thanks to member Mary-Lane Kamberg for bringing this notice to our attention. One of Iris Craver's poems, "The Kitchen Table", was recently selected for publication in the first Poets for Peace anthology, which includes peace poems from over 170 poets who have contributed to this endeavor to celebrate peace and a better world for all people. This book represents a positive step toward fulfilling our universal need for a world where loving kindness and respect replace violence and aggression. Poets know that words have power, and poetry is a sturdy vehicle to influence how people think about the world and the future of this planet that is our home. Poets for Peace was created in June 2024 following a presentation by Ihor Pavlyuk, the People's Poet of Ukraine, at the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS) Annual Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. Pavlyuk is a highly respected poet and was nominated this year for the Nobel Prize in Literature. As an orphan himself, he is highly motivated to help orphans, and he inspired the audience to aid his efforts. After the convention, Poets for Peace was created as a vehicle to help gather resources to help foster peace and provide some assistance to Ukraine's orphans. All proceeds from the creation and sales of this book will go directly to help the ever-growing number of orphans in Ukraine.
You can order a copy at https://www.amazon.com/Poets-Peace-Sunflowers-Rising-Anthology/dp/B0F99G1VH7 Member Mark Esping Shares the following: The Two Headed Doll is a recounting of interactions, usually involving both black and white persons. The author believes that several of the events in his life were orchestrated by a benevolent force. Seemingly some lives or portions of lives are choreographed.
The interactions took place in an atmosphere of preordination, which resulted in the author becoming almost human. The results of these stories guided him into eventually having access to some forms of African-America culture. The five hundred Fridays east of Troost were spent attending weekly meetings of the most diverse audience discussing the most diverse subjects. Eighty-Eight Pages Cost $22.00 + $5.00 shipping Mark O.J. Esping 603 North 2nd Street Lindsborg, KS. 67456 Gretchen Cassel Eick will be reading from her new novel, Resistance, on June 12, from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. at Watermark Books, Wichita, Kansas. World traveler Gretchen Cassel Eick moved to Kansas, earned a PhD, and became professor of history after a decade working on foreign and military policy in Washington, DC. She wrote two prize-winning nonfiction books: Dissent in Wichita: The Civil Rights Movement in the Midwest, 1954–1972 (University of Illinois, 2001/2007/2023—which won three awards, is referenced on the wall of the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture, and resulted in a PBS documentary and public park— and They Met at Wounded Knee: The Eastmans’ Story (University of Nevada Press, 2020).
After retiring from full-time teaching in 2013, she wrote six published novels —political/historical fiction, thrillers, and a family saga: The Set Up, 1984, Finding Duncan, Maybe Crossings, Dark Crossings, and Where is Ana Amara?, and Resistance! Eick was awarded three Fulbright fellowships to travel and teach overseas and teaches at Wichita State University in its Life-Long Learning Program. Poet and writer Janice Northerns will interview Gretchen on June 12 at 6:00-7:00 p.m. at Watermark Books, focusing on her new novel, RESISTANCE! |
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