2026 Book Award Winners (from left): Dawn Feltrop, William Sheldon, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Kristine A. Polansky, Ruth Maus, Patrick Kelly, Anne Spry. Not pictured: Lois Ruby.
Check for updates to guidelines before submitting!
 2026 Fiction Book Award Finalists (from left): Gretchen Cassel Eick, Elmer Fuller, Leon Unruh, Ruth Maus. Not pictured: Michael Stewart.  Resistance! by Gretchen Cassel Eick Kate's Crucible: A Bleeding Kansas Novel, by Elmer Fuller Lunacy and Acts of God, a novel by Ruth Maus The Hoping Well, by Michael Stewart Saltwood, by Leon Unruh  Judge: Molly Chenault is the Public Services Librarian at the Emporia Public Library, where she has worked for over a decade. Originally from Virginia, she has made Emporia her home and enjoys being part of its community. Molly is an avid reader and especially enjoys horror and nonfiction. Her favorite book is The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. When she’s not reading, Molly enjoys hiking and trying new craft projects. She shares her home with her dog and cats, who keep life interesting. Molly is excited to serve as a judge for this award and appreciates the opportunity to spend time with books, consider the perspectives of readers, and celebrate authors who create stories with staying power.  J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award in Fiction
Lunacy and Acts of God Ruth Maus My choice for the winner of this year’s Coffin Memorial Book Award for fiction is Lunacy and Acts of God by Ruth Maus. I chose Lunacy and Acts of God because it completely captured the heart and humor of small-town Kansas. The story is original, warm, and full of quirky, memorable characters who made me genuinely want to keep turning the pages. I loved the way it celebrated the sense of community, unexpected connections, and everyday moments that make small towns special. The humor throughout kept the story lively and added to its charm. Most of all, it felt like a book with a lot of heart—one that celebrates Kansas in a way that felt both authentic and fun. The Kansas Authors Club, supporting writers since 1904, announces the finalists for the 2026 Kansas Authors Club Book Awards. Each year the organization recognizes published books in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, Kansas history, poetry, children’s books, and book design. Finalists within each category are selected by a panel of readers made up of members, community members, and book professionals. The finalists from each category are then delivered to judges for the award decisions and announced at the 2026 fall gathering, this year taking place as the 2026 Kansas Writing Convention held at Rock Springs Ranch near Junction City, October 2-4, 2026. J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award for Fiction – Five Finalists  Resistance! by Gretchen Cassel Eick The National Front Party has just been elected in France and millions of immigrants flee to Europe to escape climate extremes and rising sea levels. As Russia tries to militarily rebuild its former empire, accurate and uncorrupted Artificial Intelligence is the best hope of preventing world war. In the midst of this perfect storm are two young Americans, one a young Black woman studying Artificial Intelligence at the Sorbonne and the other heir to the world’s largest privately owned oil and gas company. The revolutionary changes occurring in France suck them both in. But are they on the same side? A prescient, terrifying, and hopeful story of political intrigue, love, and possibility as the resisters forge their path learning from the past and determined to bring about a better future. (Blue Cedar Press, 2025)  Kate’s Crucible: A Bleeding Kansas Novel, by Elmer Fuller In 1855, pro-slavery and free-state people flock to the Kansas Territory bent on winning the slavery issue for the new state—the conflict dubbed "Bleeding Kansas." Nineteen-year-old Kate Collins leaves family, safety, and a suitor in Boston, convinced God has called her to fight slavery by teaching in the wild territory. Constant problems challenge her, and the schoolroom she crossed the country to lead always seems out of reach. If God truly called her to teach in Kansas, why does he keep closing every door she tries to walk through? Will Kate sacrifice love for her calling, or discover that God can redeem both? (Allegiance Press, 2025)  Lunacy and Acts of God, a novel by Ruth Maus In this page-turning, laugh-out-loud novel, Lunacy and Acts of God is a coming-of-age story set against 1950s real life events in Topeka, Kansas. With plenty of quirky, humorous characters and a compelling murder mystery, the book reflects the impact of family and community on prejudice passed through generations, marginalized peoples, our differences, similarities, and choices. (Flint Hills Publishing, 2025)  The Hoping Well, by Michael Stewart Joshua Macallan knew the space shuttle would explode. That is why he was in Florida in January of 1986. He was trying to save the crew and finally make a difference after so many failures. Like when he tried to save Kennedy in ’63. Joshua was naive and full of hope That was then. Now he is an old man with a past composed of more tragedy than triumph. The FBI watches Joshua’s every move. Even though he currently lives in a Kansas nursing home staring at a blank wall most of the day. When he is not rambling about Victoria, that is, the young woman who had visited him on the farm in 1958 claiming to be from the future. She had done a lot of talking. He had fallen in love. Then Victoria disappeared. Until now. Riots are brewing in New York City over a controversial new technology. He sees Victoria on the news. Still alive and still as young as his memories of her. He needs answers. Joshua will head for the chaos in New York with his 5-year-old granddaughter in tow. Sure, the FBI will be in pursuit. So will his son. But finally, after all these years, Joshua Macallan has hope again. (Independent, 2025)  Saltwood, by Leon Unruh
A former Russian assassin using the alias Nick Deveraux has become a mysterious American hero but is kept under wraps following his spectacular capture. The FBI releases him after two years, right into the hands of the Russian mob. He is coerced to complete his former assignment — kill the Senate’s last moderate conservative, Harriet Gayfeather of Kansas. He finds himself caught between the twin grindstones of oil money and religious power and becomes oddly aligned with both the senator’s deputy and a woman who has made herself regionally famous by promising to kill an unidentified person in Kansas. (Meadowlark Press, 2025)  From member Bill Isley: I have the privilege of being one of more than 20 authors featured at the Topeka Library's "Local Authors Fair" on Monday, March 30th from 4:00-7:00 pm. I'll be there to chat and sell and autograph my two novels The Likeness of Sinful Flesh and Chasing the Wind. Check out all the writers there. It should be very interesting. Love to see you. Here's the library link. https://events.tscpl.org/event/15557350 There will be many Kansas Authors Club members at this event! Look for the following, and more! Kim Hurley Andrews F.C. Appelhanz Tim Bascom A.D. Childers Anamarie Davis-Wilkens Todd Fertig Duane R. Johnson Patrick Kelly Ruth Maus Samantha Morrison Catherine Robertson Leslie VonHolten
You are invited to join members Ruth Maus and Tim Bascom, Director of the Kansas Book Festival, at the Lawrence Public Library on Sunday, June 29 from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. for an afternoon of conversation, cookies, and storytelling at Tea & Tales, a FREE event pairing authors with warm cups of tea and tasty treats.
Tim (author of Continental Drift) and Ruth (author of Lunacy and Acts of God) will read from their latest works, share stories from their writing lives, and answer your questions. A book signing will follow the event. REGISTER HERE: https://lawrence.bibliocommons.com/events/682df7ad9fe6f43e00c7daab This news items is shared from the website of member Ruth Maus. Click here to follow Ruth and sign up for updates.  I know you're all familiar with the Kansas Book Festival held at Washburn University. This year it will be on Saturday, September 20th, so save the date!
I've been asked to be a panelist there at the 9:00 a.m. panel discussion Ad Astra: Emergencies, Emergences and Restorations, with top-notch memoir authors Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Dr. Craig Yorke as we discuss struggles and "to the stars with difficulty." Because our three books contain plenty of "difficulty." This is a huge honor for me. Thank you, KBF organizers! Caryn’s book The Magic Eye depicts her struggle with a rare eye cancer, coupled with prairie restoration and wildlife refuge, moving toward surviving the personal emergency and the emergency of our environment. Craig’s book, subtitled Steep, A Black Neurosurgeon’s Journey, depicts the strict expectations that he will be an honor to his race, his difficult training in medicine, his coming to Topeka (at first working at Menninger), the emergencies he attended to in performing complicated brain surgery, and then his coming to peace with the steep price he has paid. His retirement includes being on the board of The Children’s Discovery Center as it was founded and developed, and he and his wife Mary created a prairie on the center’s land in Gage Park. My novel Lunacy And Acts of God, though not a memoir, also takes place in Kansas. My young narrator is trying to understand a confusing world of race relations, religion, picketers, and mental illness in 1950s Topeka, as well as survive a blizzard and being struck by lightning, (because we all know about Kansas weather!) and make peace with her chaotic life. I hope you can join us on September 20th for Ad Astra: Emergencies, Emergences and Restorations and what's sure to be a great conversation about struggles and successes. You are cordially invited to the Book Launch Party on Wednesday, March 26th at 4:00 p.m., at the Vogel Room (Rm. 223), second floor, Student Union at Washburn University. Remarks by Topeka Mayor Michael Padilla. Books will be available for purchase for $20, tax included. DIRECTIONS: Memorial Union is directly south of White Concert Hall on the Washburn campus. Enter through the door under the archway (under the large tower). There is an elevator right there on your right. Take the elevator to the Upper Level. Go down the long atrium hallway until it dead-ends. The Vogel Room is on your right.  LUNACY AND ACTS OF GOD is a coming of age story set against 1950s real life events in Topeka, Kansas. With plenty of quirky, humorous characters and a compelling murder mystery, the book reflects the impact of family and community on prejudice passed through generations, marginalized peoples, our differences, similarities, and choices.
Available at Amazon, Bookshop.org, and wherever books are sold. What reviewers say about LUNACY AND ACTS OF GOD:
Topeka poet Ruth Maus will be the featured poet at Kansas Authors Club District 1's open mic on Wednesday, Feb. 26 at Round Table Bookstore.   Ruth Maus, member from Topeka shares the following about her upcoming book: Thirty years ago I wrote a novel. After many revisions and lots of life events, the time is almost here for the book to be presented to the world.
Lunacy and Acts of God is a coming-of-age story set against the amazing convergence of unique events, institutions, and people that occurred in Topeka, Kansas during the late 1950s. Ultimately it is a story about community, prejudice passed through generations, quirky and marginalized peoples, our differences, similarities, and choices—a very current topic. The book is in final proofing stages now, so should be available in both soft cover and e-book formats in the next few weeks. I'll be updating with book launch and purchase information soon, but for now, read what a few advance readers have to say: "I knew I wanted to publish this book when I found myself laughing out loud when reading it! While it is full of humor, the book also addresses important societal issues that, decades after Maus started writing it, are either resurfacing or continue to need our attention. A well-crafted book full of rich characters, it's an honor to include this novel in the Flint Hills Publishing catalogue." -- THEA RADEMACHER, President, Flint Hills Publishing “Melody tells her story reminiscent of the young girl Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird. She listens and observes others then weaves in an unsolved murder mystery in this page-turning and engaging read.” -- MICHAEL PADILLA, Mayor and lifelong resident of Topeka, Kansas “What a witty and wonderfully readable book! Full of laugh-out-loud scenes, Lunacy and Acts of God will keep anyone up all night to find out what happens next.” -- ANNE SPRY, author of Finally Noticing: Photos and Poems Prompted by a Pandemic; 2024 President, Kansas Authors Club “A charming and fantastical coming of age story. A young girl wrestles with the social ills of racism, mental illness, the abuses of powerful institutions, [and] life’s many nuanced shades of gray.” -- -- DR. KAREN BELLOWS, Former Menninger Clinic Faculty “This fine novel tells an American story featuring characters so broken and vulnerable and horrible and redeeming and real that you’d swear they can exist only in fiction—until you realize that you know them--right now. That is the power and the humility of Ruth Maus’ debut.” -- CRAIG LANCASTER, two-time High Plains Book Award winner, author of Northward Dreams and 600 Hours of Edward “Ruth Maus’s character, Melody, belongs in that august pantheon of American child characters founded by Mark Twain who are able to expound upon the madness of their times with a magnificent wit and wisdom so far beyond their years, you keep turning the pages.” -- ANDREW FARKAS, author of The Great Indoorsman: Essays and The Big Red Herring “A refreshing glimpse into history and human nature.” -- JULIE A. SELLERS, author of Ann of Sunflower Lane and Kansas Authors Club Prose Writer of the Year (2020, 2022, 2023) “Follow the misadventures of Ruth Maus’s…heroine as [she] tries to make sense of the prejudices and loving loyalties of her quirky Kansas community.” -- TIM BASCOM, Director of Kansas Book Festival, author of Chameleon Days and Climbing Lessons If you would like to get updates from Ruth, please subscribe to her Mailing List at ruthmaus.com Go to the bottom of the Home Page to Attitudes and Beatitudes and enter your email. Thanks, everyone, for your support and encouragement of my writing all these years! Blessings Ruth Maus
Billings, MT– Two Kansas books made it to the top of the list in the High Plains Book Awards in 2023. The awards, begun in 2007, “recognize regional literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.”
Julie A. Sellers (Atchison), author of Ann of Sunflower Lane and Ruth Maus (Topeka) author of Puzzled: Poems, will make the trip to Billings, Montana, to attend the book award festivities where the winners will be announced on October 7, 2023. Both will be participating in panels: Sellers taking about “Fiction: Better for the Brain?” and Maus participating in a poetry reading and discussion. Ann of Sunflower Lane is one of three finalists in the young adult category. The novel is about 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,” says Sellers. Puzzled is a finalist in the poetry category. 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. 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. Both books are available at meadowlarkbookstore.com and can be ordered wherever books are sold. ### Ruth Maus and Julie A. Sellers, both members of District 1, have books recognized as finalists in the High Plains Book Awards this year. Press release
Finalists for the 2023 High Plains Book Awards were recently released, with winners to be announced at an awards event Oct. 7, in Billings. All nominated works — 263 of them this year — were read and evaluated by community readers. Winners in each category will be determined by a judging panel of published writers with connections to the High Plains region. This year, 12 of the finalists hailed from Canada, and eight were from Montana, including Big Sky Award finalist Charles Finn, a poet whose book “On a Benediction of Wind, Poems and Photographs from the American West,” with photographer Barbara Michelman, was also winner of the 2022 Montana Book Award. Nominated books must have been published for the first time in 2022. Each winner will receive a $500 award. The finalists in 13 categories are listed at the link below.  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.
 Each year, members are asked to nominate those who deserve special recognition for service to the club, for work on a special accomplishment, or for achievement in writing. Letter of Nomination:
It was a painful decision for each member of the 2021 Convention Planning Committee to pull the plug on their plans to host a live convention in Topeka. For more than a year, I sat in on many of their planning sessions. I was impressed by the energy and attention to detail as they planned their marketing strategy and put together what I think you will agree is an impressive lineup of speakers and workshop presenters. Multiple times, some members of the committee met with the director of events at Ramada Inn, or simply wandered through on their own, to examine the facilities and make sure they understood what would happen where. Because this is a virtual convention, you can never have a full appreciation of how much work went into planning those aspects of the convention that had to be scrapped. For a year, they planned for a live convention under the cloud of uncertainty created by COVID, knowing that much of their planning might be of no avail. Then, in early spring, as numbers of cases and deaths dramatically dropped and the pandemic appeared to be running its course, they voted to forge ahead full speed with their plans for a live convention. The emotional roller coaster they then endured as the Delta variant heated things up again made it all the more difficult for them to cancel the live portion of the convention. But it was clear as they discussed their decision, that what they dreaded most was the thought of feeling personally responsible for some of you becoming sick or even dying as a result of infection at the convention. Because this is a virtual event, you can never have a full appreciation of how much work went into planning those aspects that had to be scrapped. I could sense their disappointment as each one raised his or her hand to vote to torpedo much of their own plans. Through their determination to bring you and me a high-quality convention, these individuals serve as role models for us all. We can learn from them how to pivot and persevere when confronted with circumstances we cannot control. I hope you will give them a thumbs up as we call out their names. Members of the committee are: District 1: Fred Appelhanz Audrey Bosley Max Dunavan Reaona Hemmingway Ruth Maus Anne Spry Janet Jenkins Stotts Barbara Waterman Peters Carol Yoho District 5: Connie Rae White Nominated by: Duane Johnson In response to a last-minute scheduling conflict with the speakers for the next two months, Thea Rademacher and Ruth Maus have switched places. Ruth Maus will be our presenter at Saturday's District 1 zoom meeting at 1:00 p.m. She will be helping members learn the format and elements to include (and not to include) in a query letter to get your manuscript noticed by literary agents. Thea will present her program on copyright and legal issues for authors at our August 21 meeting.  Ruth Maus to present program on value of Submittable for authors at April 17 District 1 zoom4/13/2021
 The featured District 1 speaker for April will be Ruth Maus, giving a presentation on what is Submittable and how to use it to help you find opportunities for publication for your writing. She will give us a Power Point Presentation and a real time connection to the Submittable website to show how to keep track of work you've submitted, how to do key word searches and more. Learn how to use this free and easy program and increase your chances of getting published.
Ruth Maus, a native of Topeka, Kansas, has followed a love of learning around the world, with languages, curiosity, and an appreciation for all beings a constant thread. 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 Inscape, Grecourt Review, Lighten Up Online, The Death Book Project, River City Poetry, and Orchards Poetry Journal. Her poetry book “Valentine” was a finalist in the 2019 Meadowlark Birdy Poetry Prize. She currently lives in Topeka where she writes poems, novels, and short stories when not teaching her cat amazing tricks with which to bore her friends. Anyone wishing to join the District 1 zoom meeting at 1 p.m. on April 17 may join at this link. 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! 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.  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.  Congratulations to D5 member, Gretchen Eick, and the following Kansas Authors Club members who were published in this anthology: Ronda Miller (D2), Jim Potter (D6), Mark McCormick (D5), Judy Keller Hatteberg (D5), Robert Dean (D5), Michael Poage (D5), Julie Baker Brinn (D7), Mike Graves (D2), Ruth Maus (D1), Julie Stielstra (D6), Mark Scheel (D2), Miriam Iwashige (D6), Najiyah Maxfield (D6), Janet Stotts (D1), and Diane Wahto (D5). PRESS RELEASE September 20, 2020 The Death Project: An Anthology for These Times is now in print and available to order at your favorite bookstore and Amazon. This book is a 205 page anthology of stories, poems, mini memoirs, and factual pieces about the various ways we lose loved ones to death and how we grieve and heal. It is a collaboration by 36 writers from across the US, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Britain, Turkey, etc. who contributed their writing to help others suffering from grief or anticipation of grief. It is intended to expand readers' thinking, feeling, and imagining about this universal, often-hidden experience brought relentlessly to the world's consciousness in 2020. The writers are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Bah'ais, atheists, and New Age, and of different races and ethnicities. Some write of family loss including suicide, others of war or devastating illness, of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter. Others share rituals that helped them recover. Published by Blue Cedar Press (Wichita, KS) and edited by Dr. Gretchen Eick and Cora Poage, proceeds from the sales of The Death Project after the cost of publication and shipping will go to an assortment of international organizations fighting COVID-19. $12 paperback, $7 ebook (epub and Kindle). For more information contact: Gretchen Eick, 316-682-8818 [email protected] 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.
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