Current News from the Kansas Authors Club

2025 Coffin Award for Fiction

10/13/2025

Title: The Last Rancher
Author: Robert Rebein
ISBN: 978-1-956578-59-1

“This is the sort of book to take to appointments, not minding at all if you get a few minutes of reading in a waiting room. From the start, it was the language that attracted me. Author Robert Rebein warns us: “this place is going to have its claws in you.” From the suburbs of Leawood, and the serenity of the homeplace, to the dusty river, roads of Dodge City, I felt I knew each place. I wanted to stand with Annie, cup of coffee in hand, on the porch of the homeplace and see the fields of grazing cattle and horses while listening to the croaking bullfrogs and bellowing calves. The places became so real that I found myself wanting to google the streets and restaurants of Dodge. But I didn’t have to.”
-Cindy Roupe, Judge

Finalists:
•The Rhino Keeper by Jillian Forsberg
•The Pamela Papers by Nancy McCabe
•Clocked Out by Anna St. John
•Parent Imperfect by Paul Lamble

Cindy Roupe served as coordinator for the State Library of Kansas Notable Books program for 15 years. She was a long-time Director of Reference for the State Libary and on several occasions served as the interim State Librarian.

Thank you to the Supporters of the 2025 Writing Retreat

9/19/2025

Finalists Announced: 2025 Coffin Memorial Book Award for Fiction

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 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award in Fiction Finalists

The Rhino Keeper, by Jillian Forseberg

Parent Imperfect, by Paul Lamb

The Pamela Papers, by Nancy McCabe

The Last Rancher, by Robert Rebein

Clocked Out, by Anna St. John

Congratulations to Jillian, Paul, Nancy, Robert, and Anna!

Join us for Saturday's Program: Audiobook Panel July 19 @ 1:30 p.m.

7/15/2025

Member Monthly Program Access

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

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

#ReadLocalKS: The Last Rancher, by Robert Rebein

10/25/2024

Book Review by member Julie Stielstra

Book Review: Robert Rebein's contemporary western, Meadowlark Press, 2024

#readlocalks

Robert Rebein, son of a ranching family in southwestern Kansas, knows his people and knows this place. He has packed what he knows into a dense, loving, and clear-eyed saga, a contemporary western of the expected sweeping vistas, rural hardship, galloping horses, rugged (to a fault) men and indomitable (to a fault) women. These "typical" ingredients are layered in with heartbreak, suffering, exaltation, loss, endurance, addiction, aging, grave errors... and the possibility of redemption, starting over, understanding, and patience. Rebein's men and woman are complicated, difficult, sometimes downright infuriating, but they are all worth caring about.

I might have done without quite so much automotive product placement (their machinery is *extremely* important to the Bar W denizens); I worried more about what would become of the horses and dogs. But these people and this place are worth getting to know; those who already do know them will recognize them. Rebein knows them well, and paints them with vividness, understanding, and honesty.

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.

#ReadLocalKS : The Last Rancher by Robert Rebein

9/2/2024

Member Deborah Linn (El Dorado) shares her thoughts on The Last Rancher, a contemporary western novel by member Robert Rebin (Indianapolis, IN).

You know that feeling when you join a friend's big family Christmas or Thanksgiving? You are an outsider but are suddenly privy to all the inside jokes and one-liner snarks and back porch smoking sessions and cemented traditions, and it all seems a little too much and not ever enough all at the same time? You feel that maybe you shouldn't be plopped down in the middle of it, but you also experience this unique sense of warmth, so you don't want to leave? Maybe ever?

That's the experience of reading Robert Rebein's The Last Rancher.

The Last Rancher is one of the those character-driven stories that stays with you past the pages. It's the story of three adult children who, due to a medical emergency, are forced to face the reality of aging parents and end up examining the passage of time in their own lives--the passing of dreams and expectations and promises made to self and others.

Adult children Michael and Annie are summoned home to the ranching community of Dodge City, Kansas where their stubborn father, Leroy; their steadfast mother, Caroline; and their baby brother, Jimmy (Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy...smh...) live. Leroy is in the hospital, possibly dying. Michael must take the financial reins while Annie takes the actual reins in order to keep the ranch alive. Jimmy, even though he still lives in Dodge, has too much baggage to come anywhere near anything that looks like reins.

Returning home subjects Michael and Annie to a more realistic view of their lives. Sort of like returning to your old elementary school where everything seems smaller, dirtier, and maybe even a little distorted, Annie and Michael wade through what what perceptions to keep, what to correct, and what to leave behind. The reader can't help but to look inward and wonder the same things about his own life.

As much as this is a character-driven family drama, The Last Rancher is more than that. The author works magic with time and place. The reader is drawn in both by the realistically flawed characters and the portrayal of Dodge City, a modern town holding desperately onto the glory of a past that, in reality, wasn't always so glorious.

Dodge City was and is a place where it's sometimes hard to tell the heroes from the bad guys. Michael, Annie, and Jimmy struggle with this same problem in their own family, even with their own souls. It turns out that Dodge City, Kansas is the perfect setting for a story full of characters searching for a hero and a direction and a home, and maybe even a truth.

There's a little bit of something for every reader in The Last Rancher--sports, cars, horses, violence, romance, drugs, religion, action, introspection, legal drama, family drama, car chases, affairs, loyalty, and love. If you like the Yellowstone series on Netflix, you'll love The Last Rancher. If you like stories with strong female protagonists, you love The Last Rancher. If you like falling in love with bad boys--or bad girls--you'll love The Last Rancher.

--Deborah Linn, author of Just Daisy: A Gatsby Retelling
(as published on Goodreads)

Register for our 2024 Convention Today and Save!

8/30/2024

Join Us for the 2024 Kansas Writing Convention!

October 4-6, 2024

Early Bird Registration Deadline: August 31

Tickets will increase to full price on September 1.

Meet a Convention Workshop Presenter:

The Real Deal: Creating Convincing Kansans in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction

Presented by Robert Rebein

What are the elements that make characters from Kansas believable on the page? What are some things to avoid so that your characters do not become caricatures? How can we use significant detail to convince readers of our characters’ authenticity without overloading readers with “local color”? What role does dialogue play in this? To what extent does the job of creating convincing Kansans overlap with the larger job of recreating Kansas itself as a vivid, complex, and compelling locale for a story? This will be a hands-on workshop, so be ready to create and share as well as learn.

Robert Rebein is the author of the novel The Last Rancher (Meadowlark, 2024) a family saga set on a cattle ranch in western Kansas, as well as two award-winning memoirs, Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City (Swallow, 2013) and Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home (U P Kansas, 2017). He is a graduate of the University of Kansas (BA) and Washington University in St. Louis (MFA), among other institutions. He grew up in Dodge City, where his family has farmed and ranched since the 1920s. He directs the creative writing program at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

Thank you to our convention sponsors & supporters. Click on the images below to learn more.

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

Welcome New Member Rob Rebein

3/26/2024

District 6 welcomes Rob!

To introduce myself: I grew up in Dodge City, where my father's family has farmed and ranched since the 1920s. Before that, the family farmed near Ellinwood. My mother's people are originally from Maple Hill, on the eastern edge of the Flint Hills, and I have a lot of family in the Salina area, as well.

I attended KU as an undergraduate, majoring in English, and Washington University in St. Louis, where I earned my MFA. I also have a PhD from SUNY-Buffalo and an MA from Exeter University in England.

My books include a forthcoming debut novel, The Last Rancher, which will be published by Meadowlark Press this summer.

I've also published two memoirs, Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City (Swallow Press, 2013) and Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home (U P Kansas, 2017); and a work of criticism, Hicks, Tribes, & Dirty Realists: American Fiction after Postmodernism (U Kentucky P, 2001, 2009). Both Dragging Wyatt Earp and Headlights on the Prairie were named Kansas Notable Books, and Headlights was a finalist for the High Plains Book Award in the Creative Nonfiction Category.

I live in Indiana with my wife Alyssa Chase and a pair of ornery beagles. I teach creative writing at Indiana University in Indianapolis.