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 Kansas Authors Club in Wichita is hosting Petals & Poems at the Koi Pond Pavilion at Botanica this month. You are invited to attend this interactive poetry experience.
April 8 6pm - April Pameticky 7pm - Kevin Rabas April 15 6pm - Jeanice Davis 7pm Clarence Carvel April 22 6pm Julie Ann Baker Brin 7pm Traci Brimhall The recording of the February program by Kevin Rabas is now available for viewing by members at this link. (Member sign-on required.) SAVE THE DATE March 21, 2026, 1:30 p.m.  Program: Topic: House of Morrow / Children's Programs
Presented by Linzi Garcia Presentation Title - "Let's Make a Book: Advocacy through Bookmaking & the Diverse Voices Literacy Program" Linzi Garcia will walk you through how to make a little book/zine! She will discuss the zine's history and purpose as a personal creative act or a larger community movement. Linzi will also discuss how she uses this activity and other creative writing, reading, and public speaking lessons in her Diverse Voices Literacy Program--a program to enhance literacy skills through creative writing with local fifth-grade students and turn them into published authors! Linzi will offer resources to adopt your own Diverse Voices program! Creative writing is an artform for anyone, and this presentation and activity removes the pressure of making masterpieces and encourages playfulness. Linzi Garcia is the poetry editor and publicist of Meadowlark Press. Bringing together her Meadowlark role with her role as vice chair of House of Morrow, an arts-based services nonprofit, she serves as the program director for the Diverse Voices Literacy Program. During the program, Linzi and other facilitators teach creative writing, reading, and public speaking to local fifth graders, and, at the end of each school year, Meadowlark publishes an anthology of work by the students. Linzi is the author of two poetry collections, Cravings and Thank You, as well as the co-author of While Away: Travel Poems and Live a Great Story. She is a recipient of a NextGen Under 30 Kansas award. Five of our 2025 Book Awards winners joined us for the January program. This recording will remain available for viewing on our website and our YouTube Channel.  SAVE THE DATE February 21, 2026, 1:30 p.m. Program: Writing Letters & Using the Letter Form in Your Creative Work Presented by Kevin Rabas This session will explore how to use letters (and emails, posts, and texts) not only as their own creative art form, but as material and fuel for more formal creative works. We will also explore the "epistolary" (the letter form) as a structure in the poem, the narrative (fiction or nonfiction), as well as other genres and mediums, including film. Past Poet Laureate of Kansas (2017-2019) Kevin Rabas teaches at Emporia State University. He is a seventh generation Kansan. He has sixteen books, including Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner. He is the recipient of the Emporia State President’s and Liberal Arts & Sciences Awards for Research and Creativity, and he is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry. His plays and films have shown across the Midwest and on both coasts.  The following Kansas Authors Club members have pieces in the Summer 2025 issue of The Write Bridge: Amber Fraley, Annette Hope Billings, Barbara Waterman-Peters, Beth Gulley, Boyd Bauman, Brian Daldorph, Chuck Warner, Connlyn Sinclair, Iris Craver, Julie Ann Baker Brin, Keri Ault, Kerry Moyer, Kevin Rabas, Maureen Carroll, Marilyn Hope Lake, Peg Nichols, Ralvell Rogers, T.A. Dugan.
Order copies from Anamcara Press.  The Fall/Winter 2022 Newsletter is now available. It can be read online at Issuu, or downloaded as a PDF file. The newsletter is also archived on the Member Pages of our website.
Thank you to Curtis Becker for taking charge of our newsletter publication, and to Kevin Rabas for taking photos of our convention this year. Curtis has worked to make sure our newsletter has original content rather than just a recompilation of the news members get online and on Facebook. Watch for news about 2023 publications for Kansas Authors Club. We have some exciting updates coming! The Petroglyphs play original folk-rock music. Named after their day jobs, Randy Carlson (geologist/ “petro”) and Kevin Rabas (writer and teacher/“glyph”), the band has been performing steadily in Lawrence and surrounding areas since 1999 and held a monthly standing gig at Aimee’s Coffee for almost two decades. Carlson writes the music, sings, and plays guitar. Rabas plays drums and percussion. And the two are joined by Val Bontrager on bass.   The Petroglyphs will play from 5:00 to 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 22.
 D5 member Robert L. Dean, Jr. has a poem in the new issue of Flint Hills Review, poem titled "Number of the Beast." The journal also features an entry by Boyd Bauman of District 2. Kevin Rabas (D2) is a consulting editor of the publication and layout and design of the publication was completed by Linzi Garcia (D2).  D5 member Robert L. Dean, Jr., has a poem titled "Firekeeper" in the new issue of the print magazine "Thorny Locust," published out of Kansas City, MO, Silvia Kofler, editor. Other members featured in this issue include: Brian Daldorph (D2) Beth Gulley (D2) Kevin Rabas (D2) Tyler Robert Sheldon (D2) Maryfrances Wagner (D2)  At 7 p.m. on March 27, Meadowlark Press will be hosting a virtual book launch event, and you're invited! Kevin will read from the collection and will be answering your questions and chatting it up with you. Register for the event at tinyurl.com/MTWbooklaunch  A book supersedes being a simple collection of words when a poet gets a hold of them. More Than Words by Kevin Rabas is an intimate collection of poetry and micro-fiction that takes a conscientious look inward and closely around us through stages of growing up, connecting with music, navigating romance, interacting with nature, and persisting through social and personal maladies. As Kansas Poet Laureate Emeritus, Rabas’s expertise and passion shows. He can write a poem about anything, and this collection displays his versatility. Each page is a surprise, with some poems educating the reader on historic jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker and other poems ruminating on contemporary social and political issues, such as the death of George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic. Rabas is creatively invigorated by everything from questions about our places in life to working from home. Rabas often finds inspiration in conversation, such as in an exchange about beekeeping between him and his father. Conversations between lawyers and jazz drummers, bullies and the bullied, and a boy and his crushes let the reader live vicariously through some of the worst, best, and creative experiences these characters have. Each poem and sketch guarantee a clever turn of phrase, strong imagery, and clear language. Rabas uses his jazz background to channel the direct, concise percussiveness of language. The pieces in this collection span the entire scale of literal to metaphorical, always leaving something more to think about at the end. With bite-size poems and prose sketches, this is the perfect book to read in one sitting or in pieces, whenever you need a little inspiration to look at the world in a fresh way.
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.  Topeka Based Kellogg Press will host a LIVE, virtual reading on December 4 at 4:00 pm CST featuring District 2 Members Kerry Moyer, Curtis Becker, Kevin Rabas, and Ronda Miller. The reading will be broadcast on facebook.com/kelloggpress. An archive of the event will be available shortly after the LIVE stream ends. KAC members featured include Ronda Miller (D2), Kevin Rabas (D2), Curtis Becker (D2), and Kerry Moyer (D2).  The new issue of I-70 Review (issue date September 28, 2020) has pieces by several Kansas Authors Club members. Congratulations to: Boyd Bauman (D2) Robert L. Dean, Jr. (D5) Kelly Johnston (D5) Denise Low (D2) Kevin Rabas (D2)  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.
 Kevin Rabas Writing and Performing to Music Kevin Rabas supplies the prompts, and we will write and perform with live music, particularly drum. There is a long legacy of spoken word combined with music, stretching hundreds of years and across countless cultures, featuring scops, bards, troubadours, and more. (No experience necessary. Open to writers of both poetry and prose.) Past Poet Laureate of Kansas (2017-2019) Kevin Rabas teaches at Emporia State University, where he leads the poetry and playwriting tracks and chairs the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism. He has twelve books, including Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner. He is the recipient of the Emporia State President’s and Liberal Arts & Sciences Awards for Research and Creativity, and he is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry.   I-70 Review The new I-70 Review is out! Congratulations to the following Kansas Authors Club members who were published in this issue: Roy Beckemeyer (D5), Robert Dean (D5), Kevin Rabas (D2), Tyler Robert Sheldon (D2), Wyatt Townley (D2).
Order your copy from the I-70 Review website! Have we missed anyone? Please send an email if there are additional members who should be listed here. |
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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. Categories
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