2022 Convention Program - Kansas Authors Club

Bookroom Hours

Friday: 7:00 pm—9:00 pm

Saturday: 10:00 am—Noon

Saturday: 1:15 pm—6:00 pm

Sunday: 8:00 am —11:00 am

FRIDAY SCHEDULE

Friday, October 21

4:00-7:00 pm Check In / Authors Check In Books to Book Room

Visit Photo “Booth” Visit Vendor Tables

7:00-9:00 pm Book Room Open for Shopping!

7:00 7:45 pm Coffee House Show & Tell Book Stories

7:45 9:00 pm Read-athon 1 poem or 1 prose page (no exceptions)

What is Coffee House? It’s time to get together, visit, and get to know each other! Grab a cup of coffee or your bring your favorite beverage and sit with us. Hosted by Curtis Becker, Convention Chair, and Tracy Million Simmons, 2022 State President & Transitional Manager. Bring a copy of your book! Show & Tell will start with books published in 2022. Authors will have 60 seconds to share their elevator speech on content/plot, then an additional 60 seconds to share details such as publisher, where the book is available. For the Read-athon, each reader will get the opportunity to share 1 poem or 1 page of prose (prose readers, it may not be a whole story… just the first page is fine). The goal is to allow as many people as possible to share, so come prepared to make it snappy!

October

Skills

Youth Awards & Table Talk

There are four different opportunities for you to enjoy during Block 4. Select one or spend your time at a combination of events.

• You may wish to listen to talented writers during a workshop for youth followed by our Youth Awards Presentation.

• You can spend the hour or part of the time in the Bookroom where you can browse and purchase books by Kansas Authors Club writers.

• While in the Bookroom you may decide to pursue a specific question at the “Ask The Experts” table.

• Join Table Talk. Presenters from throughout the day will be seated at tables, ready to join with you and other participants in round table discussions on the four writing topics they have presented or will present information about: Expanding Views and Perspectives, Enhancing Writing Skills, Writing in Our Technical World, and Writing About Self. Pick the topics you are most interested in discussing. You'll have 12 minutes for each discussion before moving to another topic at another table. More detailed instructions will be provided at the door.

2:15-3:15 pm 2:15-3:15 pm Regency Ballroom

Outstanding Memories ½ Hour Workshop for Youth (adults welcome too) with Jared Vaughn, Karis Ens, and Shoshanna Aaliyah

Youth Awards Ceremony - Jolene Haas, Youth Contest Manager

Brazilian C

“Table Talk” with Presenters (see description above)

Bookroom

“Ask the Experts” Schedule

2:15pm Micki Carroll - Event Planning for Authors

2:30pm Cheryl Unruh - Writing for 105 Meadowlark Reader

2:45pm Ann Vigola Anderson Marketing After Your Book Launch 3:00pm POD Print - Book Printing Questions

About Self

7:30 9:30 am

SUNDAY

Classic Continental” Buffet (included in ticket)

-9:15am Morning Wake Up Exercise and Social Hour

Community and Inspiration

9:30

am

Regency Ballroom

Stephen Johnson - Subject, Transformation, Joy (Exploring an Idea from Spark to Publication for children’s books)

A

Janice Northerns

B

Writing Poetry Book

for

Renee La Viness - How to Find Critique Groups and Survive Them Until You Love Them

10:30

am

Regency Ballroom

Join artists Stephen T. Johnson, Louis Copt, Yangfei Gao, and Perry Shepard for a discussion

How do authors find artists for cover illustrations? What does a book cover designer do? What can a new artist do who is seeking to produce in more than one area?

Our panel of artists authors will give practical information on blending the arts. Join us for this opportunity to learn from the experts.

Moderator:

Max McCoy

The Write Way to the Future

Special Guest Rachel Berbiglia

Storytelling Through Podcasts

journalist and author. A native Kansan, he started his career as a police reporter for the Pittsburg Morning Sun and was soon writing for national magazines. He's written more than twenty novels, including four original Indiana Jones adventures for Bantam/Lucasfilm and the novelization of the Steven Spielberg epic, Into the West. His most recent book is American Odyssey, a historical novel set in the fur trade era of the far west. As a journalist, his investigative stories on unsolved murders, serial killers and hate groups have earned him first place awards. His most recent nonfiction book is Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River, which was named a Kansas Notable Book by the state library and also won the National Outdoor Book Award in history/biography. In addition, Max won first place in humor writing in the National Society of Newspaper Columnists annual contest last year and placed third in crisis commentary this year. He is a professor of journalism at Emporia State University.

Share your authorial stories and the written works you create through podcasts. In this presentation, we will cover podcasting basics from tactics to strategy. We'll start off by going behind the scenes to understand the tools and steps involved in creating, editing, and publishing episodes. Then, we'll talk about content planning, the effort involved, and budgting for a podcast. Finally, we'll work in groups to brainstorm ideas you can turn into your own podcast.

Rachel is the founder and host of Uncovering Kansas, a podcast that elevates and amplifies Kansas people, places, events, culture, and enterprise. Rachel's passion for highlighting and sharing stories about Kansas and Kansans has been recognized and rewarded by attracting subscribers from all over the world who tune in monthly for their dose of the Sunflower State. After finding success with Uncovering Kansas, Rachel leveraged her corporate leadership experience to create a second podcast that focuses on professional skill development. She has also written books to complement both podcasts, which have sold inter nationally. As a lifelong reader with a passion for fiction and nonfiction, Rachel understands the benefit of literacy and co founded Building a Bookshelf, a children’s literacy outreach charity, in 2010.

Lindsey Bartlett

Writing Rural: The Importance of Rural Voices in Writing Today

Tim Bascom

Formed by Family: Writing About Those Who Shaped Us

When we write

This presentation will explore how Bartlett decided to embrace her rural past rather than running away from it, and how much of her writing is informed by her rural background. She will emphasize how important it is to write about rural experiences in all genres of writing. Bartlett believes that we need more individuals writing about their rural backgrounds in order to give voice to a people and a place that are often overlooked.

Lindsey teaches composition and literature at Emporia State University. An Emporian by choice, she lives in the Flint Hills region of Kansas where she spends her days writing in various coffee shops, holed up at home with a good book, or driving the countryside for good photo opportunities. You can find her wherever there is a sunset. Bartlett has published one poetry collection, Vacant Childhood Her writing and photography have appeared in The Write Bridge, Flint Hills Review, 105 Meadowlark Reader, and The Wyandotte Window.

memoirs or personal essays, we inevitably find ourselves depicting those who have had the most influence in our lives our family members. To understand the self, we must understand them. Take a look at a shelf of memoirs, and you will see just how vital those relationships are in Tara Westover's Educated or Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home or Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. However, writing about family is risky, and there are legendary stories of family members who stopped talking after a memoir was published. As a result, we don’t want to get it wrong. In this presentation, we will look at ways to write more freely and honestly while still honoring those we care about. We will discuss how other authors have handled writing about mothers, fathers, spouses, and children.

Tim directs the Kansas Book Festival and is author of a novel, two collections of essays, and two prize winning memoirs about years spent in East Africa as a youth: Chameleon Days and Running to the Fire. His essays have won editor’s prizes at The Missouri Review and Florida Review, also being selected for the anthologies Best Creative Nonfiction and Best American Travel Writing. His short fiction has appeared in a handful of journals as well, winning the 2021 Fiction Prize at Briar Cliff Review.

Presenters

Gretchen Eick Countering Censorship by Writing

Recently we’ve seen a movement to suppress what books schools and libraries readers can read. Books have been burned in Tennessee and a PEN study book titles

banned in 86 school districts in 26 states between July 2021 and April 2022. Kansas is among the states where such book bans have been imposed by school districts. There have been 713 instances of censorship in Texas, 456 bans in Pennsylvania, and 204 in Florida. As writers, how do we respond to these violations of our First Amendment rights?

Gretchen Eick has taken up controversial issues in her two scholarly histories/biographies and five novels. She is committed to using the power of her pen (keyboard?) to fight this suppression. She encourages writers to do the same by including in their stories characters of diverse races, nationalities, religions, sexual identification, and classes, and in their historical fiction, by including what what was happening to people living with those different identities. How do you do that?

Gretchen is a professor of history emerita who now teaches in Wichita State’s Lifelong Learning program. She taught 20 years at Friends University and in Latvia and Bosnia and Herzegovina thanks to Fulbright Fellowships.

Amber Fraley

Writing for Fun and Money on Medium.com

Would you like to improve your visibility as a writer online and maybe even make some spare cash? Medium.com is a user friendly, reputable platform where writers can share everything from their most fleeting thoughts to their most serious writing, build an audience and a following, and maybe even make some spending money. If you're familiar with blogging, Medium has taken blogging to a different level. If you're not familiar with blogging, learn what it is and how it can help you grow as writer.

Amber Fraley is a native Kansan, journalist, essayist, story teller, and wife and mom to the two greatest people in the world. She’s the author of the new adult genre novel The Bug Diary, and the viral essay “Gen X Will Not Go Quietly,” as well as numerous human interest articles in regional magazines like Lawrence Magazine and KANSAS! Magazine.

Growing up in Lawrence and Wichita, Amber spent her formative years with her face in a book or at the mall with her friends. She loves Kansas with all her heart, is frequently awkward in public, and desperately wishes to see a tornado and live to tell the tale.

Carey Gillam Getting to the Story Behind the Spin

How to get to the story behind the spin: Using data and documents to make stories matter. Gillam will discuss her experiences investigating corporate corruption and offer tips and tricks for uncovering hard to get stories.

Carey is a veteran investigative journalist with more than 30 years of experience, including 17 years as a senior correspondent with Reuters international news service. She is the author of Whitewash The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science, an expose of corporate corruption in agriculture. The book won the coveted Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists in 2018. Her second book, a narrative legal thriller titled The Monsanto Papers, was released March 2. 2021.

She also has contributed chapters for a text book about environmental journalism and a book about pesticide use in Africa. Gillam testified as an invited expert before the European Parliament in 2017 about her research, and was a featured speaker at the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg, France in 2019. She also has been a keynote and/or panel speaker at events and universities throughout North America, Australia, The Netherlands, Brussels, and France. Gillam writes regularly for The Guardian. Her work has additionally been published in The New York Times, Huffington Post, Time, and other outlets.

In May of 2022, Gillam helped launch a non profit environmental news outlet called The New Lede as a journalism initiative of the Environmental Working Group. Gillam is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists and North American Agricultural Journalists.

Stephen T. Johnson

Carey Gillam

Presenters

Stephen T. Johnson

Subject, Transformation and Joy (Exploring an Idea from Spark to Publication for Children’s Books)

A Caldecott Honor and two-time New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year recipient, Stephen T. Johnson continues to challenge our notions what constitutes a children’s book. From the classic 32 page picture book format to interactive and removable three dimensional puzzle pieces to a 23 foot, expandable accordion book, Stephen is constantly exploring new ways of creating wonderment through words, art and ideas.

Stephen will discuss his wide range of subject matter and artistic processes of problem-solving complex ideas, narratives and content. Through a selection of his children’s books, he will show how they become the inspiration for other sources of creative contexts such as museum exhibits and public artwork.

The presentation will be participatory and open for attendees to share their ideas and engage with Stephen regarding all aspects of transforming an idea into a reality.

Stephen T. Johnson’s visually arresting and conceptually rich body of work forges connections between words, objects and ideas. His art spans a broad range of concepts and contexts and can be seen in site-specific public art commissions, gallery and museum exhibitions and original award winning children’s books such as Alphabet City, a Caldecott Honor, a New York Times Best Illustrated book of the year, and featured in its entirety on Good Morning America. His latest children’s book, My Big Silver Rocket Ship, will be published in February 2023 by Simon & Schuster.

Renee’ La Viness

Editing: Less Equals More

In today’s writing world, word counts rule. Whether writing for anthologies, contests, periodicals, or book publishers, an author needs to know what to cut when their word count exceeds the limit. During this interactive session, Renee’ will share some simple tips to help authors meet those limitations and strengthen their stories at the same time. Worksheets will be included.

Renee’ La Viness

Presenters

Renee’ La Viness

How to Find or Create Critique Groups and Survive Them Until You Love Them

There are many types of critique groups. How do you find the right one? What if you can’t find one in your area? Learn the pros and cons of critique groups, how to find or start a good one, and how to survive the critique process.

At thirteen years old, Renee’ La Viness wrote and performed her own ventriloquism skits. Since then, she’s been published in books, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. From 2013 to 2018, she held an editor position at 4RV Publishing.

Renee’ is the founder/organizer of the annual Meet the Publishers! event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a co organizer of the Read.Write.Share. Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the Advertising Executive for Writers Monthly PDF e magazine. She is also a freelance editor and proofreader, a sponsor and judge for multiple short story writing contests, and a speaker at writing events.

In her daily life, Renee' runs a local writing critique group, assists with another one, and enjoys spending time with her precious grandchildren. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband Gene and one ornery chicken.

Kim Horner McCoy

I Jump, You Jump: Vulnerability and the Line Break

A poem’s line break creates a pause in the current line before the plunge into the next one or off the end altogether and to be vulnerable in a poem is to open yourself (or your poem’s speaker) to the reader, to invite that reader to jump with you. If the line is the diving board, the break is the bounce that flings us into the unknown. This can be scary but the well crafted line break rewards the courage of writer and reader alike.

During this interactive workshop we’ll read some poems and examine the ways they use rhyme and enjambment to open emotional space, and work on crafting lines in our own poems whose breaks allow us to be vulnerable in unanticipated ways.

Participants in this workshop should brings poems-in-progress and laptops/ notebooks.

Kim Horner McCoy grew up in the Missouri Ozarks and lives now at the edge of the Flint Hills of Kansas. She admits to being a cat person, but is otherwise agnostic. For more than twenty years, she was a university adjunct instructor in Missouri and Kansas. She has published short fiction, book reviews, and poetry in various journals. Her debut chapbook, This Bony Cabinet, appeared in July 2021 and she is currently working on her first full length collection of poems, The Woman’s Belief Corps.

Presenters

Janice Northerns Writing Poetry Book Reviews for Publication

Are you ready to up your writing game and increase your exposure as an author? The publication market for poetry book reviews is surprisingly easy to break into! Writing reviews offers many benefits for you as the reviewer: publication credits, resume building, increased exposure and networking opportunities, and a deeper reading experience and appreciation for poetry. Reviewing books is also good literary citizenship. This presentation will cover the basics of what to include in a poetry book review and how to structure it, tips for taking notes while reading the book to simplify the reviewing process, and how to use published reviews to increase exposure as a writer. I’ll also discuss strategies for choosing books to review and matching reviews with appropriate markets, the pros and cons of including negative information, and how to share published reviews on the free site Goodreads to increase exposure.

Janice Northerns of Liberal (D 7) is the author of Some Electric Hum, 2021 winner of the KAC Nelson Poetry Book Award, the Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award from the University of Kansas, and a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. Her poetry has been widely published, and her book reviews have been published in journals such as The Rumpus and The Rupture. The author grew up on a farm in rural West Texas and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas Tech University, where she received the Robert S. Newton Creative Writing Award. Other honors include a Brush Creek Foundation writing residency, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and numerous awards for individual poems. She and her husband have lived in Liberal since 1998. When not writing, Janice enjoys dog walks, cooking, and kayaking.

Danielle Ramirez Kickstart Your Book

Most folks have never heard of a Kickstarter Campaign. It's time you do! This virtual platform helps funds creative projects like yours. It has helped fund 218,356 projects which has provided $6.53 billion in funding. Author and anthology compiler Danielle Ramirez successfully completed a Kickstarter Campaign for the Being Wichita Women book. Join us to learn how she, with help from a small team of contributors, surpassed their $2,500 funding goal.

Danielle is a mother of three and has worked in the nonprofit sector in places like Wichita, Lawrence, and Kansas City for fifteen years. Danielle has fifteen years of experience in the nonprofit sector and has led collaborative projects related to substance use prevention, food insecurity, behavioral health, advocacy, youth empowerment, and more. She values equity and believes cultural humility is vital for individual, organizational, and community progress.

Her passion for collaboration has helped build important partnerships locally and across the state. In June 2022 Danielle, along with 30 other Wichita women, released Being Wichita Women a collaborative anthology exploring stories of trauma, adversity, resilience and healing. The project has been so inspiring that she launched her own hybrid publishing business earlier this year, called Quiet Storm Services. The mission of Quiet Storm is to be a creator of books that empower the writer, promotes authentic storytelling, and supports personal and collective growth.

Julie A. Sellers

Forging Your Writing Future With Purpose and Inspiration

It’s been said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. For writers, this means we need to establish our writing plans, goals, and activities with purpose so that we can find and create inspiration naturally. This mindset encourages us to forge our own writing paths through intentional acts, rather than embrace the cliché of the writer who sits and waits for inspiration to strike. In this interactive workshop, we will consider ways to be purposeful about our writing lives and explore techniques to cultivate inspiration and motivation to write in a variety of genres. Participants will engage in writing prompts appropriate for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry and have the chance to share what they create during the session.

Julie A. Sellers is a native of Flint Hills. She earned Bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and French, a Master’s in Spanish Literature from Kansas State University, a Master’s in International Studies and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Wyoming. Julie currently lives in Atchison, Kansas, where she is an Associate Professor (Spanish) and Chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Benedictine College. Julie She is the author of the YA novel Ann of Sunflower Lane (Meadowlark Press, 2022) and Kindred Verse: Poems Inspired by Anne of Green Gables (Blue Cedar Press, 2021). Her creative prose and poetry have appeared in publications such as 105 Meadowlark Reader, Cagibi, Wanderlust, The Very Edge, Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies, Unlost, and Kansas Time + Place.

Julie was the Kansas Authors Club’s 2020 Prose Writer of the year, and the Kansas Voices Contest Overall Winner in Poetry (2022) and Prose (2017, 2019).

Danielle Ramirez

Janice Northerns

Julie A. Sellers

Presenters

Anne Shiever Daily Journaling, Motivational Writing

Journaling 5 minutes daily can increase motivation for writers of all ages. Anne will share journaling prompts and ideas for making

journaling a part of your writing routine.

Anne Shiever is a lifelong Kansas resident. She is an artist and an author with a love for poetry. Anne is one of the first authors in Kansas to take the plunge into publishing inspirational Adult Coloring Books and Journals, as well as her own poetic works. Most of her recently published titles are available on Amazon (search author Anne Shiever).

Anne is the author of Captivated, a book of romance poetry, two children's books; Taffy’s Wonderful Miracle, a story of a dachshund, and Time for Tigger Tales, where her photography tells a story of a kitten growing up. Her books are archived in the Spencer Library and Museum in Lawrence.

Anne has served Kansas Authors Club as past President and Vice President of District 4 and has served as a member on the State Board as Publicity Chair, Assistant Recording Secretary, and Awards Chair. She’s been a member since 2004. When she isn’t writing or drawing, she loves creating t-shirts and other cool gifts with her husband Zane for their on line stores by the brand A&Z Fun time Designs for Anne's Collectibles and Gifts. She enjoys spending time with her son, Kevin Jr., on her weekends off, and of course her furry babies, three dachshund rescues named Katie, Missy, and Charlie.

Cat Webling

Succeeding as a Freelance Writer in the Digital World

Freelancing is a strange entry into the world of professional writing. Often an invisible (but profitable) profession, it’s becoming more and more common in a world shifting toward a gig economy. Cat Webling, a freelance writer and editor by trade, walks her fellow authors through her career of choice, explaining what freelancing is, how it works, and how you can get into it without any experience at all. She’ll talk through establishing a presence, securing contracts, and managing your business as a freelancer including how to avoid common scams.

Cat is an actress and author based in Kansas. She loves everything mad and macabre, philosophical and silly, so that's exactly what she writes! Scifi, fantasy, and poetry are her main stays when she's not writing about literature, theater, gaming, or fan culture.

She currently has a novel, a couple of short story collections, and several poetry collections under her belt. She works as an editor for SUPERJUMP Magazine, is an active member of the Kansas Authors Club, and daylights as a copywriter for hire.

Cat writes from her home, which she shares with her loving partner, adorable son, and several very cute cats.

Shoshanna Aaliyah, Karis Ens, Jared Vaughn

Outstanding Memories

Authors Shoshanna Aaliyah, Karis Ens, and Jared Vaughn have one thing in common they've turned real life experiences into memorable books. Learn how to draw upon your memories to tell compelling stories in this interactive workshop for all ages.

Shoshanna Aaliyah is the teenage author of the acclaimed children's book, Tobias' Travels. It's notable as the first book ever written and illustrated by two teens. Her publishing debut was in 2018 with In the Shadow of a Man of Kansas, featured in the short story collection, Free Time Tales. Her newest story, Ablaze, can be found in the recent Free Time Tales from Outer Space.

Karis Ens is the author of the Piano Boy series of children's books including Neighborhood Hero, Teacher's Hero, and Sidetrack Mission. Her work as a piano teacher has inspired these comical stories with a new release coming this year. Her first book was in 2016 with the autobiographical God is Real (So is the Devil). Her latest children's book, A Girl and Her Cat, tells the true story of her beloved cat, Pepper. Jared Vaughn launched his publishing company, Time Honored Productions, in 2017 with his first book, The Longest Time. It was followed by the Free Time Tales short story series and the sequel, Another Time. THP also publishes Shoshanna, Karis, and Lynn Main. He is currently writing the third Time book and will soon develop The Longest Time into a Roku series

of Kansas

“We live in an era of spectacular change. During these exciting times, with civilizations’ phenomenal growth in knowledge and achievement, we cannot afford to remain static. We must attune ourselves to the age in which we live.”

—Virginia L. Reichert, 39th

Artist Louis Copt was born and reared in Emporia, Kansas. He graduated from Emporia State University in 1971 with a degree in art. Copt began his ca reer as a full time artist in 1984 after returning from a summer of study at the Art Students League in New York City. The focus for Copt’s painting has been Kan-sas in general and specifically on the Flint Hills , the annual prairie burning and most recently, figurative painting. Louis has taught at the Lawrence Arts Center for over 20 years and has led travel and painting workshops to France, Spain and Italy. He has also taught adjunct classes at the University of Kansas.

Yanfei Gao is a self-taught illustrator, who specializes in creating de-tail-rich watercolor paintings to make reading more fun for kids. Vibrant colors and whimsical subjects define her unique style. Yanfei designed the 2022 KAC Convention logo. She has authored and illustrated a children’s book, and has done the cover illustration for other children’s books. My name is Stephen T. Johnson and thanks to my drawing students, I have inherited the acronym STJ. And I like it. So, I now use my acronym to define the 3 pillars of my creative framework Subject, Transformation and Joy! The transformation of the subject into a physical reality (paintings, collage, mosaics, sculpture), the joy I receive in the process of making, plus the joy it brings to the viewer through my children’s books, public art and gallery and museum exhibitions.

Perry L. Shepard is a Vietnam veteran who has published two books: The Hero versus Me and Monkey Jo, and ARECOS Part 66. He co-wrote two plays in the anthology titled Annabelle. Perry is an artist and is currently showing his work in Lawrence, Kansas at Elmos Tavern. He was a board member of (SMAG) South Mass Art Guild in Lawrence Kansas, and the Vice President of the Kansas Authors Club District No. 2.

The Petroglyphs play original folk rock music. Named after their day jobs, Randy Carlson (geologist/ “petro”) and Kevin Rabas (writer and teacher/“glyph”), the band has been performing steadily in Lawrence and surrounding areas since 1999 and held a monthly standing gig at Aimee’s Coffee for almost two decades. Carlson writes the music, sings, and plays guitar. Rabas plays drums and percussion. And the two are joined by Val Bontrager on bass.

Thanks to Our District 2 Convention Committee

Curtis Becker (Chair), Ann Vigola Anderson, Maureen Carroll, Toni Cummings, Cheryl Heide, Deb Irsik, Tracy Million Simmons, Cheryl Unruh and District 2 Helpers

Lindsey Bartlett, Linzi Garcia, Beth Gulley, Kerry Moyer, Kevin Rabas, Brenda White