Current News from the Kansas Authors Club

#ReadLocalKansas: Poetry Books by Meadowlark Press

3/7/2025

Member Skyler Lovelace reviews poetry volumes by Tyler Robert Sheldon, Olive L. Sullivan, and Laura Lee Washburn from the back catalog of Meadowlark Press at The Shout.

"Meadowlark Press' roster of memoir, poetry, short stories, and novels has expanded the Midwest’s literary scene, emphasizing books and writers who possess a distinctly Kansas vibe. It’s the best place to find poets who follow in the footsteps of well-known, Kansas-connected writers like William Stafford, Steven Hind, and Kevin Young — all poets whose work connects nature and landscape while addressing personal identity. "

Read Skylar's Reviews

What are you reading? Help us lift and share the good news about Kansas literature. Tag your book loves and reviews on social media with #ReadLocalKS and submit here to be posted on the Kansas Authors Club website.

Member Robert Rebein Book Tour Dates

6/12/2024

EMPORIA, KANSAS. Dodge City native Robert Rebein’s debut novel, The Last Rancher, a family saga set in southwest Kansas, will be published by Emporia’s Meadowlark Press on June 7, 2024.

Giving voice to the contemporary American West, The Last Rancher follows one family’s quest to survive on the demanding and starkly beautiful High Plains. Doing so will require the Wagners of Sawlog Creek to come together as never before to face stark challenges in the present as well as the long and lingering shadows of a tragic past.

When a near-fatal accident befalls rancher Leroy Wagner on the eve of the annual wheat harvest, his daughter, Annie, a Ph.D. student in western New York, and her older brother, Michael, a Kansas City attorney, are summoned home to Dodge City and the Bar W Ranch. Their city-born mother, Caroline, and rebellious younger brother, Jimmy, join the effort to save the ranch and what remains of their family ties. Never far from any of their minds is the looming specter of Wade, first-born son and brother who died too young.

What happens next will determine the future of the Wagner family and the land that has defined them for nearly a century. Will Leroy recover from his injuries? Will Annie take over the ranch or return to New York? Will Michael quit his corporate job and finally strike out on his own? Will Jimmy realize his dream of escape, or will a run-in with the police land him in the Ford County Jail?

Early readers have praised the novel’s authentic Kansas setting and characters, its understated humor—a trademark of Rebein’s previous books—and its graceful rendering of land and animals, especially horses:

“Love and horses, whiskey and weed, land and money: The Last Rancher has it all.” — Kyle Minor, author of Praying Drunk

“Rebein’s characters are so real that I would swear I know them. I was hooked from the first page to the last.” — Cheryl Unruh, author of Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town

“I loved this book. A family drama with humor and heart, The Last Rancher gives you the prized shotgun seat and guns the gas. You’d be wise to buckle up.”— Sarah Layden, author of Imagine Your Life Like This

“Dodge City, Kansas, has found its bard. His name is Robert Rebein, and his debut novel, The Last Rancher, showcases an assured new voice of the contemporary American West.” — Will Allison, author of What You Have Left

About Robert Rebein
Born and raised in Dodge City, where his family has farmed and ranched since the late 1920s, Robert Rebein is the author of two previous books set in Kansas: Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City (Swallow Press, 2013) and Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home (University Press of Kansas, 2017). Both books were named Kansas Notable Books by the State Library of Kansas, and Headlights on the Prairie was a finalist for the High Plains Book Award. A professor of English at Indiana University Indianapolis, Rebein lives in the historic Irvington neighborhood of Indianapolis with his family and two ornery beagles.

About Meadowlark Press
Meadowlark Press, LLC is an independent publisher specializing in books by authors from the heartland. Tracy Million Simmons, owner and publisher, founded Meadowlark in 2014. In its first 10 years, the press has published dozens of books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, including five Kansas Notable Book winners, a winner of the High Plains Book Award and a winner of the Midwest Book Award.

Visit Robert's Website

Purchase The Last Rancher

The Adventures of Bottle Calf at Volland

3/16/2024

Ann Vigola Anderson, D2 member, and artist, Sara Long, had a wonderful event for The Adventures of Bottle Calf at Volland-the place for art and music, in the Flint Hills, Sunday, March 3.

Kids and grown up of all ages enjoyed the story and the art!

New Book by Member Al Ortolani

10/22/2023

Bull in the Ring
by Al Ortolani
Meadowlark Press, October 2023
Retail: $19.99

ISBN: 978-1-956578-42-3
EBOOK: 978-1-956578-43-0

FICTION / Small Town & Rural
FICTION / Coming of Age
FICTION / Historical / General

Armed with only poetry and wit, Danny wears his dead father’s army jacket and copes with the string of losers and abusers brought home by his mother. Will he find direction before he reaches the end of this dead-end road life has handed to him?

What Readers are Saying:

Al Ortolani’s Bull in the Ring manages to conjure other great coming-of-age stories—think The Catcher in the Rye, think The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian—while being “in a football conference all its own.” Danny Prego is an instantly iconic protagonist, masking deep hurt and insecurity with careful bravado and one-liners, with his dad’s boots that make him taller and the dream of a letter jacket that will make him feel like someone. Bull in the Ring is a time capsule of a book that made me nostalgic for an era before I was even born.

   —Melissa Fite Johnson, author of Green (Riot in Your Throat, 2021)

Al Ortolani’s crisp prose, peppered with poetry, grabs the reader and doesn’t let go. Will Danny find an exit on that dead-end road? Bull in the Ring is fiction, but its story is true. It takes place in my town. It takes place in yours. Don’t take my word for it. Read it for yourself.

   —Michael D. Graves, author of Human Shadow, Pete Stone Private Investigator series

Life to teen Danny Prego is one long series of hard knocks, from an alcoholic single mother and her dangerous boyfriend to finding trouble at school. Danny reads his reality like a football team and game, always getting back up and out of the mud and muck, regardless of how hard the tackles are. Just as he thinks he’s found secure footing in the circle of senior football players, life comes at Danny from all angles, then deals him a blow that will either take him to his knees or show him the way forward. Despite his tough-guy exterior, Danny Prego is a character who is all heart. Readers of all ages will be firmly on Danny’s team and cheering for him as he faces his most difficult decision to try to escape being the Bull in the Ring.

   --Julie A. Sellers, author of Ann of Sunflower Lane and Kansas Authors Club Prose Writer of the Year (2020, 2022)

Al Ortolani nailed small town Kansas life in this thoughtful, well-crafted teenage odyssey. It had me eager to see what would happen next . . . right up to the evocative ending. Indeed, I was so captivated by protagonist, Danny Prego, and his hard-scrabble life that I was left yearning for a sequel.

   —J.T. Knoll, The Morning Sun (Pittsburg, Kansas)

Al Ortolani knows how to tell a tale so it’s like we’re in Danny’s shoes, trying to keep a few steps ahead of troubles that take it in turn to smash into that bull in the ring who we’re soon-enough rooting for.

   —Brian Daldorph, Kansas Poems

Order from Meadowlark Press

Al Ortolani is the Manuscript Editor for Woodley Press in Topeka, Kansas, and has directed a memoir writing project for Vietnam veterans across Kansas in association with the Library of Congress and Humanities Kansas. He is a 2019 recipient of the Rattle Chapbook Series Award. He has been a Kansas Notable Book recipient in 2017 and 2021. His poetry has appeared in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. After 43 years of teaching English in public schools, he currently lives a life without bells and fire drills in the Kansas City area with his wife Sherri and their rescue dog Stanley.

Al joined Kansas Authors Club in 2023.

New Book by Member Marilyn Hope Lake

10/22/2023

Our Mothers' Ghosts and Other Stories
by Marilyn Hope Lake
Meadowlark Press, October 2023
Retail: Paperback $19.99, hardcover $29.99

FICTION / Women
FICTION / Feminist
FICTION / Short Stories (single author)
FICTION / Historical / General

Forced to extremes in order to escape women’s accepted societal roles, the protagonists in this short story collection—the women of one midwestern river town family—overcome hardship and heartbreak, pain and pressure, in order to burst the bonds that hold them and bring forth a better future for their daughters and sons. Their struggles comprise a panorama of women’s issues that span the twentieth century: social injustice, sexism, discrimination, and racism. These ordinary women experienced it all, and the unique ways in which they dealt with these issues illustrate a past we should all hope to leave behind.

What Reviewers are Saying:

Set in Illinois and Missouri river towns and cities from the early to late twentieth century, these plainspoken stories resurrect the past in all its glorious particulars, without sanctifying or sentimentalizing a mixed heritage of familial love and abuse. It’s all here: romance, rape, domestic violence, segregation, integration, the sexual revolution, political upheaval, and each generation’s backlash against the excesses of the last. Our Mothers’ Ghosts revolves around two archetypal sisters, and Lake takes great relish in revealing the dark impulses of the golden girl Helen and the disruptive innocence of the black sheep Boots. Amid the palpable pleasures of the book’s rich historical detail, there is always the shock of something blunt and honest and new.
—Trudy Lewis, author of The Empire Rolls

Marilyn Hope Lake’s work is very impressive. Lake’s tender prose transports the reader to an earlier, yet not-so-simple time, that reminds us of our past and guides us to a more hopeful future. Her stories have an effect you may have seen in a classic film, beginning with an evocative black and white photograph that suddenly blooms in full, technicolor glory as the narrative springs to life.
—Daren Dean, author of Far Beyond the Pale and Black Harvest

Our Mothers’ Ghosts is a wonderful collection of interconnected short stories that gains in complexity with each story, creating a rich portrait of work and women in twentieth-century America.
--Steve Wiegenstein, Author, Scattered Lights, Slant of Light, This Old World, and The Language of Trees

Order from Meadowlark Press

Marilyn Hope Lake writes short fiction, poetry, plays, and children’s picture books. She has many awards, including Kansas Authors Club contest wins. Dr. Lake’s first place story, “Harry’s Stone,” was published in Words Out of the Flatlands; Kansas Writers Association. Lake is published in Rock Springs Review, STIR, Well-Versed: Literary Works, the Gasconade Review, the Mizzou Alumni Magazine, and 105 Meadowlark Reader.

Marilyn lived in Hutchinson, Kansas, from 2002-2017, is a long time active member of the Kansas Authors Club. She helped facilitate the 2014 annual conference. She misses her Kansas friends, but is happy to live with her canine companion, Hugo, near family in Columbia, Missouri.

Birdy Poetry Prize, by Meadowlark Press, Now Taking Entries

10/10/2022

BirdyPoetryPrize.com

Accepting Entries: September 1 - December 1, 2022

Entry Fee: $25

Prize: $1,000 cash, publication by Meadowlark Press, including 50 copies of the completed book

All entries will be considered for standard Meadowlark Press publishing contract offers, as well.

Full-length poetry manuscripts (55 page minimum, 90+ pages preferred) will be considered. Poems may be previously published in journals and/or anthologies, but not in full-length, single-author volumes. Poets are eligible to enter, regardless of publishing history.

Invitation to Book Launch Celebration, Julie A. Sellers, District 1 Member

9/28/2022

You are invited to celebrate the launch of

Ann of Sunflower Lane

with Julie A. Sellers and Meadowlark Press.
When: Oct 7, 2022 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://tinyurl.com/SunflowerLane

Ann of Sunflower Lane, by Julie A. Sellers Published by: Meadowlark Press, Emporia, KS, October 2022 ISBN: 978-1-956578-23-2 (hard cover) $30.00 ISBN: 978-1-956578-22-5 (paperback) $18.99 ISBN: 978-1-956578-24-9 (ebook) $9.99

For Immediate Release

New L.M. Montgomery-Inspired Novel Takes Place in the Flint Hills of Kansas

Emporia, KS – Meadowlark Press announces the publication of Ann of Sunflower Lane by award-winning author Julie A. Sellers. This novel is a tribute to the Kansas Flint Hills, booklovers and reading, and Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

Sellers explains that the novel is not an adaptation of Montgomery’s classic novel, but a story of the way books and reading impact readers. “The title character, Ann Alwyn, is an avid reader, and when she comes to live with the grandparents she never knew at Sunflower Lane farm, she discovers a kindred spirit in an old edition of Anne of Green Gables. Her reading of that and other texts frames her experiences as she integrates herself into life on the farm and in the small-town community of Storey, Kansas.”

“Ann of Sunflower Lane is a love-letter to books and reading, and especially to the power of Anne of Green Gables to reflect and to shape life,” says Elizabeth Rollins Epperly, Professor Emerita and founder of the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Marah Gubar, Associate Professor of Literature at MIT and author of Artful Dodgers: Reconceiving the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (2009), said, “I love how vividly this book conjures up contemporary rural life in a small town, chronicling how the transplanted Ann comes to terms with her troubled family history by putting down new roots and reinvigorating old ones.”

“I love this character, this book. Readers of all ages will fall in love with Ann of Sunflower Lane,” said Kansas writer Cheryl Unruh, author of Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town.

Sellers was the Kansas Authors Club 2020 Prose Writer of the Year and the Overall Poetry (2022) and Prose (2017, 2019) winner of the Kansas Voices Writing Contest sponsored by the Winfield Arts and Humanities Council. She is the author of Kindred Verse: Poems Inspired by Anne of Green Gables (Blue Cedar Press, 2021).

The book can be purchased at meadowalarkbookstore.com and ordered wherever books are sold.

Sellers is available for readings for interested groups. For more information, visit the author’s website at www.julieasellers.com.

JulieASellers.com

Puzzled, new poetry book by Ruth Maus

9/26/2022

Puzzled, poems by Ruth Maus, Art by Katja Weiss
Published by: Meadowlark Press, Emporia, KS, September 2022
ISBN: 978-1-956578-25-6

For Immediate Release

New Poetry Collection by Ruth Maus Includes Paintings by Her German Cousin

Topeka, KS – The poetry and art in Puzzled (Meadowlark Press, 2022) has connections dating back to 1882, when the great-grandfather of Ruth Maus came to the US as a young boy with his parents and siblings. They were Germans who eventually settled on a farm in Holton, Kansas, where a descendent still lives and farms to this day. The ancestral village, which Ruth Maus was able to visit in 1997, is now a part of Poland. Cousins met, including descendent of a brother to Ruth’s great-grandfather who stayed behind. Gertrud Knuth and Ruth have maintained contact since that trip, and Gertrud’s daughter, Katja Weiss, an artist living near Hamburg, Germany, has taken over those communications in this digital age.

“I sent them a copy of my first poetry book, Valentine, in 2019. Periodically, I would email Katja one of my new poems, and she would email me one of her new paintings,” Maus writes. Then the German cousin suggested that Maus could use her paintings in a future poetry book.

Maus wrote most of the poems in Puzzled during the pandemic, and the 110-page book is filled will her German cousin’s full-color paintings.

“I continue to be amazed that despite 140 years, thousands of miles, different languages, two world wars, and multiple generations, we unacquainted cousins have collaborated on this project!” writes Maus.

“Throughout Puzzled, Ruth Maus’s skillfully-wrought poems abound in delight and wonder, her curiosity and playfulness on full display. These are fun and memorable gems . . .” writes Jonathan Greenhause, author of Cupping Our Palms, winner of the Birdy Poetry Prize (Meadowlark Press, 2022).

“Katja Weiss’s art provides counterpoints of quiet, restful, yet mysterious places to contemplate the poems. Puzzled is synergy in its purest form,” from Barbara Waterman-Peters, artist, author, and illustrator.

Puzzled is available at meadowlarkbookstore.com and can be ordered wherever books are sold.

Ruth Maus, a native of Topeka, Kansas, has followed a love of learning around the world to places large and small, to pyramids and hedgerows, presidential balls and Kansas hayfields.

She represented Smith College at the annual Glasscock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest where past contestants have included James Merrill, Sylvia Plath, Katha Pollit, Mary Jo Salter, James Agee, Frederick Buechner, Kenneth Koch, Donald Hall, William Manchester, Muriel Rukeyser, and Gjertrud Schnackenberg. Her poems have appeared in a variety of literary publications.

Her first book of poetry, Valentine, published by Meadowlark Press, was a finalist in the 2019 Birdy Contest.

Ruth is a member of Kansas Authors Club, District 1.

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.

Kind of Blue Hybrid Book Launch Event with D5 Member Arlice Davenport!

8/9/2022

Meadowlark Poetry Press invites you to a hybrid
(in-person AND Zoom) book launch event in celebration of
Kind of Blue by Arlice Davenport!
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Date: August 12
Place: Twin Rivers Winery
627 Commercial St.
Emporia, KS 66801
Register for Zoom Details:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAsdu-oqTIoHta_LxX-p914y2axk-WnPuHd

Click HERE to preorder Kind of Blue now, or save your appetite for a signed copy at the event!

About the Author:

Arlice W. Davenport is the author three collections of poems, Setting the Waves on Fire, Everlasting: Poems, and now, Kind of Blue published respectively by Meadowlark Press (2020) and Meadowlark Poetry Press (2021 & 2022). He is the retired Books editor and Travel editor for The Wichita Eagle newspaper. He and his wife, Laura, continue their travels, which include more than 30 stays in Europe.

The State Library of Kansas Announces the 2022 Kansas Notable Books

6/2/2022

TOPEKA – This year’s list of Kansas Notable Books continues the tradition of celebrating the rich stories and culture of Kansas.

“The 2022 Kansas Notable Books list recognizes 15 books written by Kansans or about Kansas,” said Ray Walling, Acting State Librarian. “Through their work, the authors take readers on a journey through the wetlands of the Cheyenne Bottoms to the baseball fields of the Kansas City Monarchs. Readers can be transported back in time to the 1887 election in Argonia or to the epic battle of twin sisters enabled with superpowers facing a sinister force. This year’s titles include something for everyone. I hope all Kansans will visit their local public library to check out these wonderful titles.”

Each year, the Kansas Notable Books list features 15 books, published during the previous calendar year, which are about or set in Kansas, or written by a Kansas author. This year’s selection committee includes representatives of public, university, and school libraries, teachers, academics, and writers.

Kansas Notable Books authors will be awarded their medals at the Kansas Book Festival on September 24 at Washburn University. The public is invited.

Kansas Notable Books is a project of the Kansas Center for the Book, a program at the State Library of Kansas which is the state affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. The mission of the Kansas Center for the Book is to highlight the state’s literary heritage and foster an interest in books, reading, and libraries.

For more information or questions about Kansas Notable Books program, visit kslib.info/notablebooks
or contact the State Library of Kansas at 785-296-3296 or email [email protected].

2022 Kansas Notable Books

Ava: A Year of Adventure in the Life of an American Avocet by Mandy Kern (Great Bend), illustrated by Onalee Nicklin (Emporia), Meadowlark Press

Blue Collar Saint: Poems by Brenda Leigh White (Emporia), Meadowlark Press

Field Journal: Volume XIII, 2021, The Santa Fe Trail by Symphony in the Flint Hills (Cottonwood Falls)

From This Moment: A Novel by Kim Vogel Sawyer (Hutchinson), Waterbrook

The Greatest Thing: A Story About Buck O'Neil by Kristy Nerstheimer (Overland Park), illustrated by Christian Paniagua, (Queens, NY) The Little Fig

Haven’s Secret (The Powers Book 1) by Melissa Benoist, Jessica Benoist (Council Grove), Mariko Tamaki, Abrams Books

How to Resist Amazon and Why by Danny Caine (Lawrence), Microcosm Publishing

Killing Dragons: Order of the Dolphin by Kristie Clark (Jetmore), Delphi Imprint

Mad Prairie: Stories and a Novella by Kate McIntyre (Worcester MA), University of Georgia Press

Policing Sex in the Sunflower State: The Story of the Kansas State Industrial Farm for Women by Nicole Perry (Lawrence), University Press of Kansas

Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains by Lucas Bessire (Norman OK), Princeton University Press
Stormbreak: A Seafire Novel by Natalie C. Parker (Lawrence), Razorbill

A Vote for Susanna: The First Woman Mayor by Karen M. Greenwald (Rockville MD), illustrated
by Sian James (Cambridge UK), Albert Whitman & Co.

White Hot Hate: A True Story of Domestic Terrorism in America's Heartland by Dick Lehr (Belmont MA), Mariner Books

Words Is a Powerful Thing: Twenty Years of Teaching Creative Writing at Douglas County Jail by Brian Daldorph (Lawrence), University Press of Kansas

For more information about the State Library of Kansas, please visit https://kslib.info.

# # #

Congratulations

Kansas Authors Club members on the 2022 Notable list:

Brenda Leigh White - District 2

Brian Daldorph - District 2

Kristie Clark - District 7

Meadowlark Press - Member at Large

Cathy Callen, D2 Member and State Secretary, Publishes Book with Meadowlark Press

4/29/2022

“I have a lot of marbles. I confess to you that I have 18,734 of them, more or less,” writes Cathy Callen in the opening essay of Marble Shorts.

Marble Shorts contains eight essays, filled with sparkles of color that rival the marble images that adorn these pages. This book is a gift to the collector, the curious soul, the seeker of color in this bleary-eyed world, and the rest. Meet the Marble Lady of Kansas City. Meet the Girl Scout who uses marbles to earn her “think like an engineer” badge. Meet Bruce of the Moon Marble Company. You just never know what might happen if you plant a marble. It may grow!

“What spectators view as art in homes, businesses, and museums is the culmination of a creative process that starts with an idea. The work that goes into transforming a creative idea into something that can be displayed is not always obvious. If you are a patron of the arts, I would think your interest would lie primarily in the finished product—what you can see, what you can admire, what you might purchase, what you would then display. If you are an artist, the journey toward that destination belongs to you.” –CC

What Readers are saying:
A sense of nostalgia pervades this charming work which introduces readers to extraordinary collectors—people who collect off-beat adventures, lasting friendships, and fascinating skills, as well as marvelous marbles. This is a summery, sunny book that can warm a winter’s day. It is a book to slow down with, to savor and enjoy, and perhaps coax up a memory or two. –Kathy Koplik
Marble Shorts is a collection of gems. Profiles, pictures, and personal observations about passion, all inspired by those perfectly round glass objects that generate smiles throughout the world. Cathy Callen introduces us to connoisseurs, history, manufacturing, and, most importantly, the sheer enchantment of those magical pieces. In this case, one can judge a book by its cover; the photo of a blue marble between the toes of a baby's foot promises the delightful read to be delivered. –Romalyn Tilghman, author, To the Stars Through Difficulty, 2018 Kansas Notable Book
Cathy Callen checks all of the boxes with this delightful book. You can’t imagine how many times I interrupted what my wife, Nancy, was doing to relate or read aloud what I’d just read. –Jack Kline, author of Rhapsody
Both Cathy Svacina and Bruce Breslow are at the top of their game when it comes to marbles . . . excellent biographical material on them, as well as the other individuals mentioned in this book. The variety of stories relating to collecting marbles and collecting in general is widespread. Well done! –R. Merwin Kirkwood
I enjoyed learning about the people in the stories—all of whom began their marble journeys at different stages of their lives and for somewhat different reasons, although as I read through the book, it seemed clear that love of color, focus on art and science, and personal memories created their individual journeys toward creating their various collections. –Gayle Stuber
Ms. Callen has a great appreciation of enthusiastic people who take pleasure in simple joys. It is a perfect release for these anxious times. –Jim and Lene Brooke

Purchase Marble Shorts

Visit Cathy's Website

Cathy Callen

When I was a child, play was mostly physical. I loved to roller-skate, swim, ride my bike, walk along rock walls, and even climb a few trees. Reading was play, for me, too, and a main way I spent my time when I wasn’t outside. Family leisure time involved working puzzles and board games together, or playing cards—especially on summer vacations to Minnesota when we’d play Canasta and Hearts while slapping at mosquitoes. I had my first near-death experience at age eight, when my Dad sent me to a strip mall near our house in Salina to purchase the game of Monopoly. After making my purchase, I decided to cut through an alley behind the store. Proud of my accomplishment and hugging the bag with the Monopoly game close to me, I started to sprint home and was nearly struck by a speeding car in the alley. I did live to tell about it, and we played a lot of Monopoly.
Play is different now.
Any time there is a camera in my hand, or a yellow legal pad and a pen nearby, I am happy. Throw in a few thousand brightly colored marbles that need tending, and I can be ecstatic.

Author Michael D. Graves Hosts 1930s Cocktail Party, Fourth Book in the Pete Stone Private Investigator Series Released

4/7/2022

Emporia, KS – Meadowlark Press and Michael D. Graves announce the publication of the fourth book in the award-winning Pete Stone Private Investigator series. Shadows and Sorrows is available for pre-release order through meadowlarkbookstore.com and a launch event is planned for Thursday, April 14, from 4-6 pm at Twin Rivers Winery, 627 Commercial Street, Emporia. Attendees will enjoy readings by the author and themed cocktails will be featured. 1930s cocktail attire is encouraged; party fedoras will be on hand for guests.

Shadows and Sorrows opens in Wichita, Kansas, on April 18, 1938. Cocky Wright has been Pete Stone’s friend since they first met on a baseball field, a couple of kids with skinned knees, lots of moxie, and not much else. Now Cocky is dead, Cocky’s wife and daughter are in danger, and shady characters are after something Cocky was hiding. Was Pete’s friend dealing secrets to the German American Bund? Was his friend really out to threaten the safety of the country?

Accident or murder? Pete Stone is searching for the truth, once again, and he must solve the puzzle before his pal’s reputation is tarnished forever.

Books 1 and 3 of the series were recognized as Kansas Notable titles. The first book of the series, To Leave a Shadow, received the designation in 2015, and the third, All Hallows’ Shadows, was named to the list in 2021. All Hallows’ Shadows was also the recipient of the 2020 J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award by the Kansas Authors Club, and it was a Midwest Book Award Finalist. The series is set in 1930s Wichita, the character of Pete Stone a memorial to the author’s grandfather.

Shadows and Sorrows, by Michael D. Graves

Book 4 in the Pete Stone Private Investigator Series
Published by: Meadowlark Press, Emporia, KS
April 2022
ISBN paperback: 978-1-956578-03-4
ISBN Kindle Edition: 978-1-956578-09-6

December 4 Book Launch Invitation - Brenda Leigh White (D2)

11/30/2021

You are invited

The book launch for Brenda Leigh White’s collection of poetry, Blue Collar Saint, will be held at Twin Rivers Winery, 627 Commercial, Emporia, Saturday, December 4, 4:00-6:00pm. The author, along with friends and supporters, will share work from Brenda’s collection followed by a short open mic opportunity for attendees.

White is a native of Emporia, Kansas, but her heart resides on the family farm in Morris County. Her most 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.”

Cheryl Unruh, Kansas Notable author, says, “With unapologetic honesty and a masterful use of language, Brenda Leigh White, in Blue Collar Saint, cycles through whimsy, curiosity, and harsh reality. Always questioning the world around her, White writes with sharpness, clarity, and wit, leaving the reader alternately gutted and longing for more.”

Emporia poet Kerry Moyer says, “The verses in Blue Collar Saint were born on the assembly line, in the working-class spaces and places of this poetic traveler’s journey. White shares her scars and lays bare a resilience rooted in wit, intelligence, and strength. This is a fine collection, from an authentic new voice in Kansas poetry.”

Blue Collar Saint is available for order through meadowlark-books.square.site and may be ordered through any bookseller. Learn more at www.meadowlark-books.com.

D2 Member, Cheryl Unruh, Book Launch Event in Emporia

11/9/2021

Emporia, KS--Flyover People essayist Cheryl Unruh, takes the stage for a literary celebration, complete with reading and book signing as Meadowlark Press releases Unruh’s new memoir, Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town, at Lyon County History Center on Saturday, November 13 at 1:00pm.

An array of regional books will be available for purchase, including other titles by Unruh, as well as books published by Meadowlark Press.

Unruh’s memoir details a small-town childhood as the daughter of a carpenter-father, who also happens to be the town cemetery caretaker. As Cheryl grows, so does her comprehension of her father’s particular maladies, a skin-condition that is not discussed by the family, as well as his struggles with depression. Presented in short vignettes, Gravedigger’s Daughter introduces Unruh’s father from a child’s eye view, and then via observations and interactions that take us through Unruh’s adolescence to adulthood. Divided into three parts, the book covers Unruh’s childhood in Pawnee Rock, her father’s middle-age years when she lived away, and his later years.

Unruh grew up in the town of Pawnee Rock in central Kansas, population 400, in the 1960s and 70s. “The stories, or vignettes, are poem-shaped, but each captures a moment in time. I see each one as a snapshot,” Unruh says. “While I will never be able to relate the entirety and complexity of a life, I hope that some of my dad’s weird and wonderful personality shines through.”

From Laura Moriarty, author of The Chaperone: “With Gravedigger’s Daughter, Cheryl Unruh has created something so fresh and inviting—a memoir in lean vignettes. Each is moving on its own, and also part of a compelling portrait of a childhood in an isolated town with a dwindling population. Unruh’s details are too specific for sentimentalism, but places and people are observed with a loving gaze that also feels wise and honest. Her father, especially, emerges as both haunted and quietly heroic. What a beautiful book.”

Fans of Cheryl’s two previous collections of vivid Kansas essays, Flyover People (2011 KS Notable Book) and Waiting on the Sky (2015 KS Notable Book), and Walking on Water, her collection of poetry, will delight in this memoir. Unruh hopes that the book will inspire readers to write their own stories “whether they write for their own pleasure or choose to share their stories with family and friends or perhaps even go on to publish their writing.” Unruh will be scheduling a series of memoir writing workshops starting in the spring of 2022.

Gravedigger’s Daughter is available for order through meadowlark-books.square.site and may be ordered through any bookseller. Learn more at www.meadowlark-books.com.

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Three Members Make 2020 Midwest Book Awards Finalists list

4/27/2021

Three Kansas Authors Club members were named finalists in the 31st annual Midwest Book Awards. The awards program, which is organized by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association (MiPA), recognizes quality independent publishing in the Midwest.

Michael D. Graves, District 2, made the Fiction: Mystery/Thriller list with All Hallows' Shadows, the 3rd book of the Pete Stone, Private Investigator series.

Jerilynn Jones Henrikson, District 2, made the Fiction: Young Adult list with A Time for Tears.

Julie Stielstra, District 6, made the Fiction: Young Adult list with Opulence, Kansas.

All three titles are published by Meadowlark Press of Emporia, Kansas, owned by Tracy Million Simmons (D2).

The 31st annual Midwest Book Awards was open to books published and copyrighted in 2020 in MiPA’s 12-state Midwestern region: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

This year’s competition garnered 241 entries in 35 categories, submitted by 74 independent publishers and judged by a panel of nearly one hundred librarians and booksellers from throughout the Midwest.

Historically, an awards gala is held in Minneapolis to announce the winners, but this year, as in 2020, winners will be announced and celebrated online, first in a Zoom webinar open to MiPA members and finalists, and shortly thereafter in a social media premiere that can be shared with friends and family. A period of book giveaways and winner highlights will accompany the social media premiere.

“This shift to celebrating online has enabled us to engage with a larger publishing community throughout the Midwest,” said Jennifer Baum, executive director of MiPA. “The number of entries received in 2020 grew by about 25% compared to the prior year, which can be attributed to our greater online presence.”

Following the conclusion of the gala celebrations, winners will be encouraged to participate in MiPA’s second season of the Virtual Reading Series, a limited series launched last year on MiPA’s YouTube channel.

Finalist books will also be for sale in MiPA’s affiliate shop on Bookshop.org, a website that shares proceeds with independent booksellers. Buyers can opt to select which independent store will receive the commission, or to leave it in a general pool to be distributed among independent booksellers.

For a complete list of finalists, visit www.mipa.org/midwest-book-awards. Follow @MIPAMidwestBookAwards on Facebook for updates on the gala’s social media premiere and book giveaways.

More Than Words, by Kevin Rabas, District 2 Member

3/20/2021

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.

"What do I need to know about ordering the book?"
All you need to know is that the book is available for preorder for at the Meadowlark Bookstore NOW!
All preorders will receive an extra special additional free, hand-made chapbook containing 16 new, unpublished Kevin Rabas poems.

We want to help you share your writing news!

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.

Kansas Authors Club Members Highlight the Birdy Poetry Prize, March 13 Event

3/1/2021

District 1 member, Ruth Maus, and District 2 member, Brian Daldorph, will be featured poets at the Birdy Poetry Prize Virtual Readings and 2021 Winner & Finalist Announcement. Meadowlark Press invites all Kansas Authors Club members to attend.

6 p.m. (CST) | March 13 | via Zoom

Please join us in celebrating the 2019, 2020, and 2021 winners and finalists of the Birdy Poetry Prize! Our illustrious Birdy authors--Carol Kapaun Ratchenski (A Certain Kind of Forgiveness), Ruth Maus (Valentine), JC Mehta (Selected Poems 2000-2020), and Brian Daldorph (Kansas Poems)--will each be reading pieces from their books.

To top it off, the 2021 Birdy winner and finalist will be announced for the first time ever, live!

Register for the event at tinyurl.com/birdypoetryprize.

The Birdy Poetry Prize is an annual full-length poetry manuscript competition that draws a large variety of poetic voices and subjects. This event showcases six of those voices, with readings from 2019, 2020, and 2021 winners and finalists.

The event will be recorded and shared on the Meadowlark website (www.meadowlark-books.com), YouTube page (Meadowlark Press), and Facebook page (Meadowlark Press, LLC).

2019 & 2020 Birdy books are available for purchase at the Meadowlark Bookstore.

The books are also available for purchase through your favorite bookstores.

To stay up-to-date on the publications of the 2021 winner and finalist, please subscribe to our newsletter at the Meadowlark website.

We look forward to seeing you at the event, and we appreciate your support!

District 5 extends Invitation to attend February Meeting

2/6/2021

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.

When: Feb 13, 2021 01:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqc-yopjwoHN2ioy00kkxQgCeOpVsOReY9

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Indie Publisher Meadowlark Press Presents Lessons Learned for Independent Authors

Tracy Million Simmons will introduce Meadowlark Press and share an overview of Meadowlark's model of publishing, including a review of today's tools of the trade. Tracy will share tips and tricks for navigating the quickly changing world of print-on-demand, including time for Q&A.

Tracy is an amazingly productive publisher and gives generously of her time to Kansas Authors Club. Her presentation will be invaluable for anyone writing and seeking to see their writing in print!

Bring paper or computers to do some writing if there is time after Tracy’s presentation.

Join us for the regular monthly meeting of D5 on Zoom, Saturday, February 13 at 1:30. Contact D5 president, Connie White, if you have questions.

D2 Member Poetry Book RElease Upcoming

1/21/2021

University of Kansas Professor, Poet Releases New Book About Life in Kansas

Kansas Poems by Brian Daldorph
ISBN (print) 978-1-7362232-0-8 Pages: 100 Paperback: $12.00

Emporia, KS – Kansas Poems “is a poetry of place and microhistory, which nonetheless transcends the people and events it tells about . . . And while I’ve never been to Kansas, I now feel that I might have—or at least that there is a Kansas of my mind, a place of lakes and fireflies and small lives.” –Laura Chalar, author of Unlearning and Midnight at the Law Firm

Brian Daldorph’s eighth full-length collection of poetry is a tribute to his adopted state, Kansas, where he has lived through the four seasons year by year, in Lawrence.

Daldorph is originally from England and had made a home for himself here through his teaching at the University of Kansas and at the Douglas County Jail. He is also the editor of Coal City Review.

Kansas poetry blooms in these pages, not only poems set in Lawrence, Linwood, Garden City, and Coffeyville, but also in the more mythological locations of Stony Creek Cemetery, Brook Creek Park, Oak Hill Cemetery and Stull, which, legend has it, is one of the gates of Hell.

These are poems about Kansas people: a Vietnam vet still angry at the government who betrayed him; undertaker Zeke Haskins, looking out of his office window at his dying small town. The football coach’s wife who fears that her husband will recruit their sons for the sport he loves.

There are ghost stories here, jail visits, love stories and break ups, a Kansas story about Brown Recluse spiders and Black Widows “waiting in outhouses and dreams with that one bite/ to freeze your limbs and jam your lungs . . .”

Kansas Poems was chosen as the finalist for the 2020 Birdy Poetry Prize contest. To celebrate, Daldorph and Meadowlark Press will be hosting a free, public virtual book launch via Zoom at 6 p.m. on February 5. The event is particularly meaningful, as it specially recognizes the 100th birthday of Daldorph’s mother, who passed in 2015. Please register for the event at: tinyurl.com/kspoemsregistration.

Daldorph will do a second, shorter reading of Kansas Poems with the winner of the 2020 Birdy Poetry Prize, JC Mehta, on March 13, along with the winner and finalist of last year’s contest, Carol Kapaun Ratchenski (A Certain Kind of Forgiveness) and Ruth Maus (Valentine).

Kansas Poems is available for order at: meadowlark-books.square.site/ and wherever you buy books.

October Book Release! Setting the Waves on Fire by Arlice Davenport, D5 member

10/12/2020

Press Release
Virtual Launch Scheduled for Wichita Author’s Debut Book of Poetry
Emporia, KS - Setting the Waves on Fire, by Arlice W. Davenport, is the newest book of poetry released by Meadowlark Press. The book retails for $15 and is now available to order. The launch event will take place via Zoom on October 14 at 7:00pm. Attendees are invited to sign up at www.meadowlark-books.com.

Of Davenport’s poetry collection, Roy Beckemeyer, Kansas Authors Club multi-year Poet of the Year, writes, “This is poetry of intellectual breadth built on a foundation of honest emotional depth. I encourage you to take up this book and read, to follow Davenport’s best advice: “Your heart is bruised, bleeding / drops of unrequited love. / The viscera of your body / tighten like a noose. You could slide // your head into it, if you choose, / . . . Love flees / like a deer bounding in a forest. / You are too broken to give chase . . . /. . . Let poems be your new heart. // It will not bleed.”

Davenport, a lifelong Wichitan, is the retired Travel editor and Books Page editor for The Wichita Eagle.

Setting the Waves on Fire (ISBN 978-1734247770) is available to order from the Meadowlark Books web-store at www.meadowlark-books.com, and for order through all online and traditional book outlets.
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