Kansas Authors Club has annual contests for unpublished work by adults and youth, as well as published book contests.

The guidelines for 2020 contests have been posted. 

Adult Writing Contests

Youth Writing Contests

Book Awards

Watermark Books & Cafe will host local poets Michael Poage, Diane Wahto, and Matt Cooper for a joint reading and signing of their new books on Sunday, January 5 at 2:00 p.m. Poage and Wahto are D5 members.

Roy Beckemeyer, April Pameticky & Robert Dean are doing a joint reading at Watermark Books in Wichita on Sunday, January 12th, starting at 2 PM. 

Clare MacQueen, the editor of KYSO Flash, has started a new online mag called MacQueen's Quinterly. D5 member, Robert Dean, is the featured artist, with five works in the first issue, all ekprahstic poems to the art of Steven Schroeder (the other featured artist in the issue).

Roy Beckemeyer, also of D5, has one poem in the issue, indexed under "Poems, lineated."

Kenneth "Neel" Holler joined Kansas Authors Club in 2009. He was a member of District 5 and a regular participant in the annual literary contests, and a frequent award winner. Though he was unable to attend, Neel was recognized for 10 years of membership at the 2019 Convention in Wichita. Also in 2019, he won 2nd place for the short story titled, Rose.

Neel's obituary can be found here.

District 1 members, Ruth Maus and Janet Jenkins-Stotts (D1 president) will be guests on the Red Couch show today, WIBW, at 4pm.

Ruth will be talking about her book of poetry, Valentine, recently published by Meadowlark Books. Kansas Authors Club will be highlighted, as well. 

Congratulations to D1 member, Duane L. Herrmann, for a stellar year of publishing!

This year Duane has had four books published by four publishers - one science fiction and three poetry collections (one dual language).

New Books by Duane L. Herrmann

• Escape from Earth: the Journal of a Planetary Pioneer - or Murder on Makana (Czykmate Productions);
• Gedichte aus Prairies of Possibilities: Deutsch und Englishe (Buffalo Press);
• Family Plowing and other Prairie poems, (Meadowlark Books);
• Remnants of a Life, (Lighted Lake Press).

10 Year Members
Sylvia S. Colombo
Marilyn Hope Lake, Ph.D.
Louise Click
Jolene Haas
Dan Close
Victoria Hermes-Bond
Kenneth Neel Holler
Paula K. Nixon

The new I-70 Review is out! Congratulations to the following Kansas Authors Club members who were published in this issue: Roy Beckemeyer (D5), Robert Dean (D5), Kevin Rabas (D2), Tyler Robert Sheldon (D2), Wyatt Townley (D2).
 
Order your copy from the I-70 Review website!
 
Have we missed anyone? Please send an email if there are additional members who should be listed here.
 

Joyce Long loves to write about life. She writes about her puppet, Zorts, and her challenges in life. She has been a member of Kansas Authors Club for many years. She has served as president of District 3 and helped get the writers group in Cherryvale started. She has served on several convention committees.

Mike Graves has been a member of Kansas Authors Club since 2011, active in the District 2, Emporia area writing group, where he gave local writers a taste of author Jim Harrison and collaborated with Tracy Simmons and Kevin Rabas on their group novel Green Bike. During this time, he went from talking about the novel he'd been working on, to publishing what became his first Pete Stone book, To Leave A Shadow, with Meadowlark, where it won multiple awards. 
 
Mike has served KAC as Prose Contest Manager in 2016 and 2019, and made himself of service in many other ways, including stepping in to assist with the prose awards at the 2018 convention when the contest manager was unable to attend.  

Mike has a well-seasoned, well-pitched storytelling voice, and draws from a deep well of historical and personal anecdotes from his life. His presentations on writing the Pete Stone mysteries at the KAC convention in 2018 were insightful and enriching, and left participants thinking of the author himself as the kind of character you'd read about in one of his stories. Along with storytelling, Mike has many other qualities that bear mentioning in the line of duty: commiserating with the right amount of wisdom to win over self-pity, and bearing with all kinds of work while maintaining an attitude of being smitten with the prospect of doing so, were two that made him a most agreeable, enjoyable, thoroughly competent professional writer to have connected with the KAC and Emporia writing groups. Mike used his well-honed skills to corral judges and contest chairs alike for the KAC Literary Contests, as well as to care about the details both behind the scenes and at the front of the awards presentations, handling both with finesse and a touch of Pete Stone class. His devotion to his wife Monica and his family are touchstones to his work, and his empathy extended to the authors submitting to the Prose Contest, expressing itself in disappointment at not being able to read every entry before the judges did. What he has in spades, however, is a quality of kindness that makes him resonate with the uniquely human experience of stories, that makes how he writes and shares the world a uniquely Mike Graves experience, and that reaches out to readers, colleagues, and community alike who receive his works and get to know him better in person.  

Nominated by: Wendy Devilbiss, D2,
​and Tracy Million Simmons, D2

Nancy Julien Kopp

Nancy joined Kansas Authors Club in 1999 and has been an active member of District 4 serving as secretary/ treasurer, president, and convention coordinator in various years. Nancy has been a frequent convention presenter of workshops and she maintains a blog, “Writer Granny's World,” where she posts daily columns filled with advice and tips for writers. Nancy also fills the role of contributor on the Kansas Authors Club Facebook page.

Nominated by Tracy Million Simmons, D2

Nancy Julien Kopp exemplifies Service, Achievement and Special Accomplishment. Any of the three awards would be appropriate. Her service to the writing community—and the Kansas Authors Club specifically—can be seen on a day-to-day basis via the encourage she gives to writers in her daily blog, WRITERGRANNYSWORLD.BLOGSPOT.COM which she generously shares through postings on the Kansas Authors Club Facebook page. In Manhattan, she will step in on a moment’s notice to moderate the Prairie Star Writing Group which meets at Meadowlark Hills. She is the KAC District 4 “Go-To” person when it comes to organizing district meetings and state conventions and she adds a graciousness to those events. When called upon to moderate a meeting or a banquet, she does so with kind efficiency, having put a lot of thought into the needs of the people producing and attending those events. She served as KAC District 4 President in 2014 and 2015 and as Treasurer in 2012 and 2013. She was Convention Coordinator in 2018, the year District 4 hosted the annual KAC convention. She has shared her writing expertise repeatedly by putting on workshops at numerous Kansas Authors Club conventions. And she has shown thoughtful consideration of various issues affecting the Kansas Authors Club.  She exemplifies service.

She leads by example. She writes and she writes and she writes. And she shares her writing. In addition to blogging since 2007, she has had pieces published in 22 Chicken Soup for the Soul books. She has won numerous KAC writing awards and was honored as Prose of Writer of the Year in 2013. It is time to honor Nancy Julien Kopp for her service and her many accomplishments, which is why I am nominating her for the 2019 Service Award and suggesting that she is a person to consider for the Achievement and Special Accomplishment Awards as well.

Nominated by: Kristine A. Polansky, D4

An accomplished journalist, award-winning poet and writer define my nomination of Ronda Miller for the Achievement Award. Not only successful in her own endeavors, she is an avid peer supporter for all genres as well. Ronda is the first to volunteer and serves as a dedicated leader for KAC. proving that if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. 

Nominated by Vicki Julian, D2

Nancy Julien Kopp, District 4 member, has been blogging about writing for 10 years! Her posts are full of great advice and encouragement for writers. You may sign up to receive emails when Nancy updates or become a "follower" of her blog, https://writergrannysworld.blogspot.com/

Congratulations to D5 member, Robert L. Dean, whose ephrastic work "Aftermath" was posted at the Ekphrastic Review, with art by Steven Schroeder. Dean was also notified that Lorette C. Luzajic, editor at the Ekphrastic Review, nominated his piece, "Metal Man," posted on ER earlier this year, and written to a photo of my paternal grandfather in my collection, for the Best of the Net. This was his first such nomination!

Clare MacQueen at KYSO Flash also nominated Dean's poem "Windmill," written to a wonderful painting by Steven Schroeder, for Best of the Net. 

Each year, writers from across the state gather for the Kansas Authors Club convention. Members enjoy a variety of writing workshops, give and get accolades for a year of writing, and enjoy the fellowship of creative friends and neighbors. Join us October 4-6 in Wichita!

Kenneth Edward Peery and his wife, Doris, were KAC D1 members for several years. Kenneth passed away on Saturday, August 10, 2019, at the age of 93. 

Carol Yoho (D1) shared the following news item about the Peery's from an August 2011 Kansas Authors Club meeting: 

Ken and Doris Peery, District 1, Topeka, shared work they'd helped publish by Ken's cousin, Maury Pierson, who was a Topeka artist, ship modeler, salesman, and closet writer. Having no children, Maury shared a small box of his writings with Ken, expressing the hope that someday they might be published. Ken and Doris worked on the booklet, hoping to publish before Maury's passing but he died in July, 2008. The keyboarding was made difficult by frequent bouts of laughter. When completed, the book was bound with a spiral binding and titled "Wit and Philosophy" by "an old curmudgeon" Maury Pierson. Copies were mailed to Maury's living cousins. Ken and Doris read selected portions of his writings.

Link to Kenneth's Obituary (Legacy.com)