Current News from the Kansas Authors Club

2025 Martin Kansas History Book Award

10/13/2025

Title: Like What You Do: The Memoirs of Dr. Walt Menninger
Author: Todd Fertig, with Walt Menninger
ISBN: 9781953583901

“Todd Fertig’s Like What You Do is a well written book on the life of one of America’s premiere psychologists. With Fertig, Mr. Menninger’s writing gives great detail on the establishment of the Menninger Foundation, a Topeka landmark for 84 years. I recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn about the advancement of American psychiatry.”
–Keith Wondra, Judge

Finalist:
•A Captivating Cast of Characters by Mike Durall

Keith Wondra is the curator at Boot Hill Museum in Dodge City. He is the former curator of collections and exhibits at the Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center. He earned both his bachelor's and master's degree in history from Wichita State University.

0 Comments

Finalists Announcement: 2025 Martin Kansas History Book Award

8/6/2025

For the first time, we are announcing finalists in our book awards categories prior to the announcement of our winners at the 2025 Fall Gathering (Writing Retreat) at Rock Springs Ranch on Sunday, October 5. This has been quite an undertaking. We are grateful to all of the individuals who volunteered to serve on our reading committees.

2025 Martin Kansas History Book Award

A Captivating Cast of Characters, by Mike Durall

Like What You Do: The Memoirs of Dr. Walt Menninger, with Todd Fertig

Congratulations, Mike and Todd!

Q&A: Book Contest vs. Literary Contests

3/14/2025

The following question came up during our 2nd Tuesday Social. It is an important distinction and we wanted to clarify for new members.

Q: I was waiting to submit my published book to the contest on April 1, and now I see that the "preferred deadline" for submission was March 1. Am I too late to enter?

A: Good question! This is an important change to the 2025 contest guidelines.

First, members need to be aware that there are two sets of contests that Kansas Authors Club sponsors annually.

The first is our Book Awards. We have eight awards for PUBLISHED books. In 2025, eligible books were published between June 1, 2023 and December 31, 2024. We are honoring the June 15 deadline, but as we are introducing the announcement of finalists for this contest, we would prefer to receive your entries ASAP. Click here for Book Awards guidelines. Read the whole thing before entering!

ONLY Kansas Authors Club members are eligible for the Book Awards contests. It is OKAY to join today and submit your book for the competition.

The second set of contests are our Annual Literary Contests with categories for youth and adult writers. These contests are open to all Kansas Authors Club members (regardless of where you live) and to ANY Kansas resident. If you live in the state of Kansas, you do not need to be a member, but adults will have to pay a little more to enter the contest. There is no charge for youth to enter the contests.

Eligible entries for this contest are short, never-before-published pieces of prose and poetry (there are several categories, review the guidelines for specifics).

Submissions for the Literary Contest are always open from April 1 to June 15. Start on this page and take the time to read the guidelines before you submit. Check out the video at the bottom of the page that walks you through the submission process.

Book Awards

Annual Literary Contests - All Ages

2024 Martin Kansas History Book Award

10/26/2024

Remembering Martha

by Jerilynn Jones Henrikson

"Remembering Martha is a fascinating read that is difficult to put down. Henrikson takes the limited source material that she has and provides a compelling monograph that leaves the reader wanting more. Although classified as fiction, Henrikson paints a picture of small-town Kansas that give insight into what it means both geographically and chronologically to live in Neosho Rapids Kansas around the turn of the 20th century. Remembering Martha takes the information obtained from an oral history interview and in the same spirit as historians who work with the stories of race and the color line around the turn of the century fills in the gaps. Henrikson does this in such a way that it can satisfy even a demanding historian."
–Judge: Steve Bellavia, history professor at Emporia State

Remembering Martha

The Martin Kansas History Book Award was created in 2018 as a tribute to Gail Lee Martin, who was KAC State Archivist from 1995-2005. Gail Lee Martin joined Kansas Authors Club in 1992 and was a member of District 5. Martin enjoyed writing fiction, nonfiction, stories for children, journalism, history, and poetry. Martin’s work was published in numerous magazines. She also published two books: Clyde Owen Martin Family Memories of His Life and Times, and My Flint Hills Childhood, which was a winner of the Ferguson Kansas History Book Award in 2010. The funding for the Martin Kansas History Book Award comes from the Gail Lee Martin Memorial established in her name. This book award is open exclusively for Kansas history.

Gail Martin Family Contributes to Martin Kansas History Book Award Fund

1/14/2024

Gail Lee Martin
1924 - 2013

Kansas Authors Club
State Archivist, 1995-2005
Member, 1992-2013

Family members of Gail Lee Martin have provided futher funding for the Martin Kansas History Book Award. With the additional funding, this book award is assured (at current rates) to take place for the next 37 years!

Gail's daughter, Cynthia Ross, remains an active member of Kansas Authors Club. Gail's granddaughter, Chhaya Kolavalli, has been instrumental in supporting this book award.

Many thanks to Gail's family. She will long be remembered for documenting and contributing to Kansas history and the Kansas Authors Club.

The Martin Kansas History Book Award was created in 2018 as a tribute to Gail Lee Martin, who was KAC State Archivist from 1995-2005. Gail joined Kansas Authors Club in 1992 and was a member of District 5. She enjoyed writing fiction, nonfiction, stories for children, journalism, history, and poetry. Martin’s work was published in numerous magazines. She also published two books: Clyde Owen Martin Family Memories of His Life and Times, and My Flint Hills Childhood, which was a winner of the Ferguson Kansas History Book Award in 2010. The funding for the Martin Kansas History Book Award comes from the Gail Lee Martin Memorial established in her name. This book award is open exclusively for Kansas history.

Learn More about the Martin KS History Book Award

Martin KS History Book Award Winners

click here to purchase

Kansas Authors Club is tax exempt as a public charity under IRS code 501(c)(3). All donations made to Kansas Authors Club are tax-deductible.

Donate to Kansas Authors Club

2023 Martin Kansas History Book Award - Without Warning, by Jim Minick

10/14/2023

Order Without Warning

Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas

Jim Minick is the author or editor of eight books, including Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas (nonfiction), The Intimacy of Spoons (poetry, forthcoming), Fire Is Your Water (novel), and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. His work has appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, Poets & Writers, Oxford American, Orion, Shenandoah, Appalachian Journal, Wind, and The Sun. He serves as Coeditor of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel.

Learn More - Martin Kansas History Book Award

Judge Bruce Mactavish is Washburn University Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences, and Assistant Professor of History. Bruce holds a BA from Furman University, and MA and PhD from University of Mississippi. He teaches Kansas Studies, Kansas History and U. S. History through and since the Civil War. His scholarly interests include African American History, the Civil Rights Movement, Kansas history and the American West.

2022 Kansas Martin History Book Award

11/3/2022

Note from the Judge:
Cheryl Unruh’s Gravedigger’s Daughter is an insightful, generous-spirited book that creates a vivid sense of both place and time by telling the story of growing up in Pawnee Rock, a small town in Barton County during the 1960s and ‘70s. Unruh’s relationship with her father, an unassuming yet extraordinary man, is affectionately and unsentimentally rendered. The author’s understanding of the character of her father and hometown is delineated by an original writing style that is lean, colloquial, and understated while at the same time detailed, colorful, and intense; the language is both plain-spoken and elegant. The natural and cultural history of the place are woven into the narrative in fresh and surprising ways that enable the reader to experience multiple dimensions of Kansas history while following the ups and downs of the lives of the people featured in the story.

Ron Parks
2022 Martin Kansas History Judge

A fifth-generation Kansan, Ron Parks grew up in Minneapolis, Kansas, where he graduated from high school in 1967. Ron was executive director of the Kansas Eisenhower Centennial Commission from 1988 through October 1990. He also served for eight years as director of the Kaw Mission State Historic Site. Published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2014, his book, The Darkest Period: The Kanza Indians and Their Last Homeland, 1846-1873, won both the 2014 Prairie Heritage Book Award and the Santa Fe Trail Association’s Louis Barry Writing Award. The Darkest Period was selected as a 2015 Kansas Notable Book. Ron has also written numerous historical articles about Hays, Council Grove, and Minneapolis.

Kristine Polansky, 2022 Vice President of Kansas Authors Club, presents Cheryl Unruh with the Nelson Poetry Award for Gravedigger's Daughter.

Martin Kansas History Book Award Winners

2021 Martin Kansas History Book Award

10/9/2021

True Tales of Kansas
by Roger L. Ringer

Both of Ringer’s books are collections of very short pieces about people, businesses, places, and events in or related to Kansas . . . all the stories take place someplace in Kansas or are about people with some Kansas connection. Fatty Arbuckle, for example, only lived in Kansas as an infant, but has a relatively long story in True Tales. . . the stories are intriguing and interesting, some of the featured people are also intriguing and I wanted to read more about them (Pelican Pete in Eccentric Kansas, for example, and Maud Stevens Wagner in True Tales).

Ringer’s writing style is casual, as if he recorded and transcribed the stories being spoken rather than writing them. This makes the books easy and quick to read. They are not meant to be academic history, but collections of stories, and in this endeavor, Ringer is completely successful.

Dr. Ellen Hansen
2021 Martin Kansas History Judge

Ellen Hansen is professor emerita in the Department of Social Sciences, Sociology, and Criminology at Emporia State University, where she taught cultural geography for 22 years. Her areas of teaching and research interest are gender and development, geography and history of the U.S.-Mexico border, and geography of Kansas and the Midwest. She is a fiber arts enthusiast, has taught knitting classes at Flint Hills Technical College, and is faculty advisor to the Unwind Fiber Crafts Club at Emporia State. She is rarely without a knitting or crochet project in her hands.

2025 Martin Kansas History Book Award

Finalists Announcement: 2025 Martin Kansas History Book Award

Q&A: Book Contest vs. Literary Contests

2024 Martin Kansas History Book Award

Remembering Martha

Gail Martin Family Contributes to Martin Kansas History Book Award Fund

2023 Martin Kansas History Book Award - Without Warning, by Jim Minick

2022 Kansas Martin History Book Award

2021 Martin Kansas History Book Award

True Tales of Kansas
by Roger L. Ringer

Categories

Archives

Remembering Martha

True Tales of Kansas​by Roger L. Ringer

Categories

Archives

True Tales of Kansas
by Roger L. Ringer