Current News from the Kansas Authors Club

Book Launch Party for Member Dawn Feltrop in Rose Hill, KS

11/6/2025

Book Launch Party for Rosemary Chick: Pip, Zip, Hooray!

Saturday, November 29, 2025 • 5:00–8:00 p.m.

Join local author Dawn Feltrop at Morning Grit Farm, 15499 SW 140th St., Rose Hill, KS, for a fun family event celebrating her new children’s book Rosemary Chick: Pip, Zip, Hooray! Enjoy story-time, a petting zoo, coffee/hot chocolate bar, s’mores by the fire, cupcakes, and book signings.

RSVP by November 22: [email protected]
More info: www.DawnFeltrop.com

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Final State Program for 2025

11/1/2025

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Program: Lowering Your Standards

Presented by William Sheldon
Poet Bill Sheldon will share an approach he's had success with, one designed to reduce the anxiety of a blank page/screen.

Author William Sheldon was born in Colorado, and moved with his family to Emporia at age 5. Sheldon spent much of his life in Kansas, but also lived in California. He received his Master of Fine Arts at Wichita State University. Sheldon was a professor of English at Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson, Kansas, where he taught creative writing. His poetry has appeared in such journals as Blue Mesa Review, Flint Hills Review, Coal City Review, and Midwest Quarterly.

His books are Retrieving Old Bones (Woodley 2002, Kansas City Star Noteworthy Book), Into Distant Grass (chapbook Midwest Quarterly, 2008), Deadman (Spartan Press 2021), and When I Go West: New and Selected Poems (Meadowlark Press, 2025).

Zoom Link for Program

sign-on required

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Zine Launch Livestreamed Tonight, October 23

10/23/2025

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Join us at Washburn University's Carole Chapel, Thursday, October 23, 4:00-5:00 p.m., 1701 SW College Ave in Topeka.

Carole Chapel is just south of the Memorial Union.

The launch celebration of Writing from the Center will be livestreamed on our Facebook page.

Kansas Authors Club on Facebook

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Meet a Member at the Derby Public Library, October 10

10/7/2025

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The Derby Public Library will host Cathy Feemster for a Meet & Greet the Author on October 10 from 10 am to Noon. Cathy is the author of My Friend Rachel by Shep, the dog. Her book is appropriate for children ages 5 and up. It follows the adventures of Rachel's dog Shep who becomes a true hero. The book is based on a true story from Cathy's grandmother and takes place in 1901 on a farm on the Kansas prairie.

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Join us on Saturday for the 2025 Annual Meeting of the General Membership

10/7/2025

Members will receive link via Email Newsletter.

Link can also be accessed via sign-on to our member pages.

You are Invited: Book Launch for Robert W. Phillips, Lawrence

9/23/2025

Big Boys Don't Cry
Book Launch

The official launch of the book will be on Sunday, September 28, 2025, 2 pm to 4 pm, at the Missouri Pacific Railroad Depot, 401 North 2nd Street, Lawrence, Kansas.

Visit Robert's Website

Monarch Books & Gifts Grand Re-Opening - Overland Park

9/23/2025

You are cordially invited to Monarch Books & Gifts’ Grand Re-Opening on Saturday, October 4th at our new location from open to close.

Join us as we flutter down the block to our new home at 7733 W 151st St, Overland Park, KS 66223 in the Stanley Station shopping center (next to Jalapeños). We would love for you to be a part of our next chapter!

This move allows us to create more cozy seating, revamp and expand our coffee bar with more drink selections and host even bigger community events, from boozy book fairs to profit shares! All while keeping the personalized and unique experience only a local bookstore like ours can provide.

We'll have the new coffee bar set up for our expanded drink menu, Taylor Swift's new album playing, the prize wheel spinning, local authors ready to chat, double the points on all purchases and a costume character story time. Please feel free to come at any time on Saturday to celebrate the start of this new chapter with us!

Meet us at the Kansas Book Festival!

9/18/2025

We’re excited to have you join us for the 14th annual Kansas Book Festival on Saturday, September 20, 2025, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Washburn University in Topeka!
This free, public celebration will feature 45+ authors—including Bill Kurtis, Bryn Greenwood, and Kevin Young—plus children’s activities, live entertainment, book sales, and food trucks.
Stop by the Kansas Authors Club table! We look forward to meeting you!

Kansas Book Festival

Annual Meeting of the General Membership: Save the Date

9/17/2025

Please plan to attend the Annual Meeting of the General Membership on Saturday, October 11, 2025, at 1:30 p.m.

This meeting will be held on Zoom (sign-in required).

The meeting link will be emailed to all members.

Sunday, September 7: Book Launch and Reception for The Crow Lady: Barbara Waterman Peters

9/1/2025

The Crow Lady: Barbara Waterman-Peters, a new book by Cathy Callen, will make its debut at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, 1515 S.W. 10th, Topeka, Kansas.

Please join us on Sunday, September 7, 2025
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
with Introductions and readings at 2:30 p.m.

Books will be available for purchase.

The Crow Lady, Barbara Waterman-Peters, is an introduction to Kansas artist Barbara Waterman-Peters, for young readers. It explores her interest in and identification with crows, asking readers to use imagination as they think about crows, flying and art. Barbara has provided four sketches of crows and 26 of her paintings to illustrate the book.
The inclusion of Barbara's art makes this book a treasure for adults as well.

The Crow Lady @ Meadowlark Press

The author, Cathy Callen, is a member of Kansas Authors Club residing in Lawrence, Kansas. Barbara Waterman-Peters is a member residing in Topeka.

If you have news of writing events that would be of interest to all Kansas Authors Club members, or if you are a member (dues current) who would like to announce an achievement, please submit your news via this form.

A First Book Launch by Member Hazel Hart

8/26/2025

The following is re-posted from Hazel's blog and newsletter. Join Hazel and friends on August 31, 2:00 p.m., and Middle Ground Books, 606 Commercial, Emporia, Kansas.

Reputation is my thirteenth published novel, and I am having my first book launch on August 31 at 2 pm at Middle Ground Books in Emporia, Kansas.
So how did I launch the first twelve novels?

Previous new book announcement process:

Research and write book.
Publish book.
Order copies.
Receive copies.
Put copies in car.
Tell friends, “Hey, I have a new book!”
Friends say, “I’d like a copy,” and pay me.
I sign the book, toss it to them, and the launch is complete.

With the help of friends
While I have attended several book launches in the past, I’m still not sure what I should do at mine. Fortunately, my Emporia Writers friends, Tracy Million Simmons, Deb Irsik, and Lindsey Bartlett, have volunteered to help. With their experience in launching, I am less anxious and looking forward to my first book launch ever.

What is Reputation about anyway?

Reputation is everything to a woman and her team of detectives in 1861 St. Louis.

From the top floor of the Gates Hotel to the caves beneath it, the search for a murderer takes Hannah True and her team into situations that compromise their reputations as women and as novice detectives. Meeting a man alone might be enough to ruin her reputation, meeting him in a saloon would definitely destroy it.

Reputation is the fourth book in the Hannah True series. If you happen to be in Emporia, Kansas, on August 31, I’d love to have you celebrate its publication with me. If you prefer eBooks, visit my Reputation book page on Amazon or visit my Amazon Author page to view the first twelve.

Words In the Wind to Feature Dennis Etzel, Wednesday, August 27

8/26/2025

Poetry Night at Gallery Twelve in Wichita, Presentation by Janice Northerns

8/26/2025

Join us for Poetry Night at Gallery Twelve in Wichita! This will be an interactive presentation featuring KAC poet Janice Northerns. Janice will read ekphrastic poems (poems written in response to art work) from her award-winning book and share a few writing tips. You’ll then have a chance to walk through the gallery and respond to the art on display with your own writing. You don’t have to know anything about poetry to participate—come prepared for a little creative inspiration and fun! The event is free. This month’s exhibit features photographs by Bob Benson and glasswork by Scott Garrelts. Final Friday reception will be from 6-9 pm, Aug. 29. The poetry presentation will begin at 7 pm. Gallery Twelve is located at 412 E. Douglas, Suite A, Wichita, KS 67202.

Janice Northerns is the author of Some Electric Hum, winner of the Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award from the University of Kansas, the Kansas Authors Club Nelson Poetry Book Award, and a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. The author grew up on a farm in Texas and holds degrees from Texas Tech University, where she received the Robert S. Newton Creative Writing Award. Her poetry has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. After living in southwest Kansas for 25 years, she and her husband, the poet Bill McGlothing, moved to Wichita in 2023. She is active in the Wichita Authors (D5) chapter of Kansas Authors Club and has presented writing workshops locally and at the state level. Find out more on her website: www.janicenortherns.com.

Sign up for Newton Public Library's Local Author Day, Oct. 11!

8/15/2025

On Saturday, Oct. 11, Newton Public Library will host its first-ever Local Author Day, a celebration of creativity and storytelling featuring authors from Harvey, Reno, McPherson, and Marion counties – and beyond.

The public will be invited to browse books, chat with authors, and discover new local reads during our author fair, 1:30-3:30 p.m.

Come early for a panel discussion, 10:30-11:30 a.m., with featured authors sharing insights into their writing journeys and the publishing process. (More details TBA.)

Registration for authors who live in Harvey, Reno, McPherson, and Marion counties will open on Monday, Sept. 1. Registration for authors who live elsewhere will open Monday, Sept. 15.

We have room for around 32 authors, so please sign up ASAP!

Questions? Email Sam Jack, [email protected], or call the library, 316-283-2890.

Invitation to Bradley Fair Barnes & Noble in Wichita

8/15/2025

Here's a fun note from member, Mary L. Schmidt!

I'm having my first ever book signing with Barnes & Noble on Saturday, August 23, 2025, at the bookstore in Wichita at 1920 North Rock Road in Bradley Fair. My first ever. Thank you. This is HUGE for me.

I'm going to have a young Kansas author with me, Willa Finnegan, who wrote her first book at age 11, published at age 12, and she is now age 13. If anyone can make it and show support, that would be awesome. Willa is a new member of Kansas Authors Club.

Congratulations, Mary! We love to help Kansas authors celebrate these moments.

Members: Get Your Quarter Page Book Ad in the 2025 edition of the Kansas Authors Club Zine

8/6/2025

Instructions for purchasing Quarter Page Book Ads and other sizes for 2025-2026 are now available on the website. Place your order by August 15 for the Early Bird Rate. Those who meet the Early Bird deadline will also be published in Writing from the Center, 2025 edition.

Learn More

Sample Member Book Ads from 2024
Thank you to all who have supported our fall event and programs!

Retreat Registration News

7/27/2025

This is your reminder to register for the 2025 Writing Retreat! The Leadership Lodge Loft rooms are going quickly, followed by the private rooms at Hansen.

Just picture it -- Friday evening through Sunday noon -- time to take care of your muse! Write. Write. Write. Talk a walk on the beautiful Rock Springs campus. Nap. Write some more. We'll have some rooms full of prompts and inspiration if you need a nudge.

The Magic Eye Book Launch, July 17, 7 p.m., Raven Bookstore

7/14/2025

The Magic Eye
A Story of Saving a Life and
a Place in the Age of Anxiety

A Memoir to be released July 15, 2025
by Mammoth Publications
ISBN: 9781939301574

“No endorsement can do justice to this vivid, lyric, wise, wry, compassionate, profoundly spiritual memoir of passage through some severe life trials.The Magic Eyeis a microcosmic epic of unvaunting human triumph. Bursting with life in its myriad forms, this is a book to love and to share.”
~ Stephanie Mills, author of In Service of the Wild and Epicurean Simplicity

“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.

The Magic Eye investigates what it means to reinhabit our bodies and ecosystems.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., the 2009–13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of over two dozen books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam’s Well, a novel; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body. Her poetry and prose have been widely published in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies over the years.

Founder of Transformative Language Arts (writing, music, storytelling, and other word arts for social and personal transformation), Caryn is a beloved writing workshop facilitator and writing coach with over thirty years of experience. She regularly teaches for Lighthouse Writers, Writers.com, the Transformative Language Arts Network as well as offering private classes, all focused on how writing can bring us greater meaning, vitality, connection, and joy. She loves life-giving collaborations: she offers Your Right Livelihood with Kathryn Lorenzen, Brave Voice with Kelley Hunt, and The Art of Facilitation with Joy Roulier Sawyer.

Caryn offers weekly “Write Where You Are: A Writer’s Companion” through her Patreon and her long-running blog, “Everyday Magic.”

As elaborated upon in this memoir, she makes her home with eco- logical writer Ken Lassman south of Lawrence, Kansas where the deer and the wild turkeys roam, a dog and cat keep house, and their adult children frequently visit.

July 19 Program: Audiobook Panel

7/8/2025

Audio Book Panel
President Anne Spry will be moderating a panel on the various ways members have been publishing audiobooks.

Panelists:

Grant Overstake is author and producer of The Real Education of TJ Crowley. The novel was adapted into a full-cast audio drama featuring performances by a national cast and the ARISE Ensemble. The production earned an Earphones Award from AudioFile Magazine and won the 2025 Audie Award for Best Young Adult Audiobook.

Robert Rebein is an essayist and novelist with a special insterest in the American West. As author and narrator of The Last Rancher and Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home, Rebein has recorded his own audiobooks

Ben Stanton is an audiobook narrator and producer based in Topeka, Kansas.

Lisa D. Stewart is the author of The Big Quiet: One Woman's Horseback Ride Home. Lisa recorded her own audiobook with the assistance of an audiobook production studio.

Member Monthly Program Access

Sign-in required.
Members also received a link to the monthly program in their monthly email newsletter.

June Program Recording Now Available

6/28/2025

The recording of the June program is now available for viewing by members at this link. (Member sign-on required.)

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.

Abbi Lee Books

Next Program:

July 19, 2025 - 1:30 p.m.

Audiobook Panel

President Anne Spry will be moderating a panel on the various ways members have been publishing audiobooks.

Panelists:

Grant Overstake is author and producer of The Real Education of TJ Crowley. The novel was adapted into a full-cast audio drama featuring performances by a national cast and the ARISE Ensemble. The production earned an Earphones Award from AudioFile Magazine and won the 2025 Audie Award for Best Young Adult Audiobook.

Robert Rebein is an essayist and novelist with a special insterest in the American West. As author and narrator of The Last Rancher and Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home, Rebein has recorded his own audiobooks

Ben Stanton is an audiobook narrator and producer based in Topeka, Kansas.

Lisa D. Stewart is the author of The Big Quiet: One Woman's Horseback Ride Home. Lisa recorded her own audiobook with the assistance of an audiobook production studio.

Monthly Programs by Kansas Authors Club

<<Previous

Book Launch Party for Member Dawn Feltrop in Rose Hill, KS

Final State Program for 2025

Zine Launch Livestreamed Tonight, October 23

Meet a Member at the Derby Public Library, October 10

Join us on Saturday for the 2025 Annual Meeting of the General Membership

You are Invited: Book Launch for Robert W. Phillips, Lawrence

Monarch Books & Gifts Grand Re-Opening - Overland Park

Meet us at the Kansas Book Festival!

Annual Meeting of the General Membership: Save the Date

Sunday, September 7: Book Launch and Reception for The Crow Lady: Barbara Waterman Peters

A First Book Launch by Member Hazel Hart

Words In the Wind to Feature Dennis Etzel, Wednesday, August 27

Poetry Night at Gallery Twelve in Wichita, Presentation by Janice Northerns

Sign up for Newton Public Library's Local Author Day, Oct. 11!

Invitation to Bradley Fair Barnes & Noble in Wichita

Members: Get Your Quarter Page Book Ad in the 2025 edition of the Kansas Authors Club Zine

Retreat Registration News

The Magic Eye Book Launch, July 17, 7 p.m., Raven Bookstore

July 19 Program: Audiobook Panel

June Program Recording Now Available

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