Program: Q&A With Award Winning Authors
Program Location: Zoom
Join us in conversation with Kansas Authors Club 2025 book award winners:
Ashley Donigan - 2025 Kansas Authors Club Book Design Award, Children's Category
Ashley Donegan lives in her childhood home in small-town Kansas, surrounded by family and a lively assortment of farm animals that inspire her storytelling. For Ashley, these animals are more than pets—they’re the heart of the sweet, imaginative tales she creates to make children feel safe, loved, and entertained.
Her creative journey is a true family affair, as she collaborates closely with her daughter—the real spark behind their stories. Together, they enjoy creating different kinds of art and dreaming up new ideas for future children’s books.
Ashley has self-published two titles, including their latest adventure, Pirate Chickens Under Attackkkkk!!!, co-written and illustrated by her 10-year-old daughter. The award winning book has been featured on KidLitTV, and was showcased at the prestigious Frankfurter Buchmesse book fair in Germany this past October. Pirate Chickens has currently been the proud recipient of two different awards.
One Mama's Heart
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Jim Gilkeson - 2025 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award in Nonfiction
Jim Gilkeson is a native of Wichita. He is the author of five books, two of which have received the Coffin Memorial Award for Non-Fiction. Stories and articles by Jim have appeared in Memoirist Quarterly, Invisible City, Meadowlark Reader, and Massage & Bodywork Magazine. After lengthy periods in Europe and the American Wild West, he lives, now for the third time, in Lawrence, Kansas.
Abbi Lee - 2025 Kansas Authors Club Award for Best Children's Book
Abbi Lee taught high school English and Social Studies before turning her full attention to writing. She now works as a copywriter for a marketing agency and has been published in multiple magazines. Her next book, Hometown Treasure Hunt, is the second novel in the Geocache Club trilogy and releases March 3rd, 2026. Outside of reading and writing, Abbi also enjoys making (and eating) no-bake cookies, geocaching for hidden treasures, and going on adventures with her husband and two daughters.
Website & Socials:
Website: abbileebooks.wordpress.com
Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram: @abbileebooks
Denise Low - 2025 Nelson Poetry Book Award
Denise Low, former Poet Laureate of Kansas, is author of Jigsaw Puzzling: Essays in a Time of Pestilence (Meadowlark Press, Coffin Non-Fiction Award); House of Grace, House of Blood, Nelson Poetry Book Award (University of Arizona Press); the memoir The Turtle's Beating Heart, and other books. Her other awards include a Red Mountain Press Editor’s Choice Poetry Award and four Kansas Notable Book Awards. The Academy of American Poets chose her as an editor for the 2026 Poem-A-Day series. Board memberships include Indigenous Native Poets (In-Na-Po), Write On Door County advisory board, and former AWP board member and president. She programs the Indigenous Voices series for The 222, an arts organization in Sonoma County, CA. and teaches online for Baker University. www.deniselow.net Her Ph.D. is in literature and MFA in Creative Writing.
Robert Rebein - 2025 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award in Fiction
Robert Rebein grew up in Dodge City, Kansas, where his family has farmed and ranched since the late 1920s. A graduate of the University of Kansas and Washington University in St. Louis, as well as Exeter University in England, Rebein teaches fiction and creative nonfiction writing at Indiana University Indianapolis. He is the author of Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City, Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home, and The Last Rancher (2025 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Award and 2025 Kansas Notable)
Website
Program Location: Zoom
Join us in conversation with Kansas Authors Club 2025 book award winners:
- Ashley Donigan (Design for Children's Book)
- Jim Gilkeson (2025 Coffin Nonfiction)
- Abbi Lee (Children's Book)
- Denise Low (Nelson Poetry)
- Robert Rebein (2025 Coffin Fiction)
Ashley Donigan - 2025 Kansas Authors Club Book Design Award, Children's Category
Ashley Donegan lives in her childhood home in small-town Kansas, surrounded by family and a lively assortment of farm animals that inspire her storytelling. For Ashley, these animals are more than pets—they’re the heart of the sweet, imaginative tales she creates to make children feel safe, loved, and entertained.
Her creative journey is a true family affair, as she collaborates closely with her daughter—the real spark behind their stories. Together, they enjoy creating different kinds of art and dreaming up new ideas for future children’s books.
Ashley has self-published two titles, including their latest adventure, Pirate Chickens Under Attackkkkk!!!, co-written and illustrated by her 10-year-old daughter. The award winning book has been featured on KidLitTV, and was showcased at the prestigious Frankfurter Buchmesse book fair in Germany this past October. Pirate Chickens has currently been the proud recipient of two different awards.
One Mama's Heart
Jim Gilkeson - 2025 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award in Nonfiction
Jim Gilkeson is a native of Wichita. He is the author of five books, two of which have received the Coffin Memorial Award for Non-Fiction. Stories and articles by Jim have appeared in Memoirist Quarterly, Invisible City, Meadowlark Reader, and Massage & Bodywork Magazine. After lengthy periods in Europe and the American Wild West, he lives, now for the third time, in Lawrence, Kansas.
Abbi Lee - 2025 Kansas Authors Club Award for Best Children's Book
Abbi Lee taught high school English and Social Studies before turning her full attention to writing. She now works as a copywriter for a marketing agency and has been published in multiple magazines. Her next book, Hometown Treasure Hunt, is the second novel in the Geocache Club trilogy and releases March 3rd, 2026. Outside of reading and writing, Abbi also enjoys making (and eating) no-bake cookies, geocaching for hidden treasures, and going on adventures with her husband and two daughters.
Website & Socials:
Website: abbileebooks.wordpress.com
Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram: @abbileebooks
Denise Low - 2025 Nelson Poetry Book Award
Denise Low, former Poet Laureate of Kansas, is author of Jigsaw Puzzling: Essays in a Time of Pestilence (Meadowlark Press, Coffin Non-Fiction Award); House of Grace, House of Blood, Nelson Poetry Book Award (University of Arizona Press); the memoir The Turtle's Beating Heart, and other books. Her other awards include a Red Mountain Press Editor’s Choice Poetry Award and four Kansas Notable Book Awards. The Academy of American Poets chose her as an editor for the 2026 Poem-A-Day series. Board memberships include Indigenous Native Poets (In-Na-Po), Write On Door County advisory board, and former AWP board member and president. She programs the Indigenous Voices series for The 222, an arts organization in Sonoma County, CA. and teaches online for Baker University. www.deniselow.net Her Ph.D. is in literature and MFA in Creative Writing.
Robert Rebein - 2025 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award in Fiction
Robert Rebein grew up in Dodge City, Kansas, where his family has farmed and ranched since the late 1920s. A graduate of the University of Kansas and Washington University in St. Louis, as well as Exeter University in England, Rebein teaches fiction and creative nonfiction writing at Indiana University Indianapolis. He is the author of Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City, Headlights on the Prairie: Essays on Home, and The Last Rancher (2025 J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Award and 2025 Kansas Notable)
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