2018 Kansas Authors Club Convention

It's starting to feel like a belated recap of the festivities. Has it only been one week?

On October 5-6-7, I had the pleasure of meeting up with my writing family in Salina for the Kansas Authors Club annual convention and writers conference. I ran the book room this year (shout out to Ray "Grizzly" Racobs, my helper!), and so it was a different view that I often get, but I had a fabulous time, none-the-less.

Cover (front & back) of the 2018 Youth Writing Contest
Awards Book - Cover Photo by Evie Simmons

Ninety-eight kids from across the state of Kansas completed 200 entries in the annual Youth Writing Contest (categories in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction). It has been a pleasure to work with our youth contest manager each year (shout out to Sheree Downs, 2018!) and to compile the book of winning entries. I love watching the kids get copies of these books. For this highlight alone, I would return to Kansas Authors Club conventions again and again. Thanks goes to many who have encouraged and contributed to the growth of this program.

Instead of attending workshops this year, I visited with authors one-on-one in the book room. The creative energy seemed to flow beyond the walls of the conference rooms. I enjoyed reports from attendees, as well as conversations about works-in-progress and books read. I don't know how the numbers compare to previous years, but we had 35 authors in attendance with more than 100 titles for sale. And it was extremely satisfying to watch shoppers select their books. ("Here! This is it! That book by the woman we were talking to.")

Convention Attendees from Emporia: Jolene Haas, Curtis Becker, Monica
Graves, Michael Graves, Kevin Rabas, Cheryl Unruh, Tracy Million
Simmons, Hazel Hart, and Wendy Devilbiss - 2018 Salina

Possibly one of the best things about the convention this year was the number of attendees from my local area. Emporia Writers group continues to grow each year and we had representation enough to fill a table at the convention this year. This is only a fraction of our regular attendees locally, but it certainly feels good to be part of a vibrant and growing group of productive writers.

It didn't hurt that Kevin Rabas, Emporia's professor poet in residence (aka Kansas Poet Laureate) was the keynote speaker at the convention. Kevin has such skill at bringing his enthusiasm and creative drive to the workshops. He has a way of emboldening and empowering writers. I heard long-time Kansas Authors Club member, William Karnowski (poet, current state archivist, former state vice president, former district president) saying, "Kevin really gets it. He knows how to connect with people. It's not just academic," as he was leaving Kevin's workshop.

Kevin Rabas was presented with
the Merit Award for Achievement
in Writing at the 2018 Kansas
Authors Club Convention

Wendy Devilbiss (here with Diane
Wahto, state awards chair) was
presented with the Merit Award
Service to the Club, as was
Reaona Hemmingway (who was
unable to attend).

A highlight of the convention each year is the book awards, and the total given this year was five. Award winners were as follows:

J. Donald & Bertha Coffin Memorial Book Award, Flight, a novel of Beirut and the French Countryside, by Jean Grant

Nelson Poetry Book Award, Acacia Road, by Aaron Brown

Martin Kansas History Book Award (year one under the Martin name, in memory of Gail Martin, former archivist for the Club), A Cow for College and Other Stories of 1950s Farm Life, by James Kenyon

"It Looks Like a Million" Book Design Award, The Modern Bachateros: 27 Interviews, by Julie Sellers

Kansas Authors Club Children's Book Award (new in 2018, sponsored by state president, Ronda Miller), Bird, by Glendyn Buckley (Illustrated by Barbara Waterman-Peters)

Literary Contest Winners in the Memoir/Inspiration Category:
Julie Sellers (Honorable Mention), Jack Kline (Honorable
Mention), Micheal D. Graves (2nd Place), Tracy Million
Simmons (1st Place).

After a great weekend of workshops and inspiration, the convention was capped, as usual, with the adult literary contest awards in prose and poetry. I had five entries this year and was thrilled to take home awards in two!

I plan to share more about the award in Spoken Word Poetry soon!

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Kansas Authors Club membership is open to anyone who has an interest in writing. Meetings are held in several locations across the state. Learn more about Kansas Authors Club at www.kansasauthors.org.

Kansas Authors Club 2017 Convention in Coffeyville

October 13-15, I attended my 15^th Kansas Authors Club Convention. I’ve only missed two since I became a member 17 years ago. This year the event was held in Coffeyville, Kansas. I have circled the state more than twice now attending conventions with KAC, and, as almost always, I was extremely pleased with the quality of presenters, I very much enjoyed the time spent with my writing family, and I came away with new ideas and inspirations sure to fuel my writing work well into the coming year.

Some highlights: Pete Walterscheid performed his magic for us twice! Attendees got a show on Friday evening, a great warm-up for the weekend, and he performed again for the youth awards event on Saturday.

Speaking of youth awards, I think we had the best event for our young writers that we have had to date. Our programs for young writers keep improving and I am so proud to be a part of KAC’s efforts to encourage these kids. For many years now, formatting the Youth Awards Book (printing courtesy of Mennonite Press) has been a highlight of my KAC experience. This year, I continued my support of the creation of the book by lending the talents of an intern for my publishing company, Meadowlark Books. Sammy Beck is a senior at Emporia State University majoring in English with a minor in creative writing. She did a fantastic job on the publication and her original artwork for the book’s cover was a hit.

Max Yoho

Today I join the friends, family, and lucky readers who have had the pleasure of knowing Max Yaho, an author who has left us a legacy of fine work and words to enjoy. I know his friendship has touched many, his stories many more.

Here's my 2013 interview with Max.

His obituary.

Tracy with Max Yoho - Kansas Authors Club
Convention, October 2013

Imagine - 2016 Kansas Authors Club Convention in Lawrence, Kansas

Home from a weekend with my writing tribe and family -- grasping for a way to bottle up this energy and store it for later days. At this moment, I imagine myself coasting on this energy through the completion of the next several projects I have on the table.

Just a few my take-homes (posted mostly for me to return to and savor on another day):

Performance Art -- The convention featured several examples of poetry as performance. We had some really awesome entertainment. I've gotten much more comfortable as a speaker and presenter over the years, but I am a little surprised at how much this performance aspect appeals to me. I may have to devote a teeny tiny bit of my time to writing poetry and then a teeny tiny bit more time adding a bit more performance to my presentation.

Barry Barnes was a stellar performer. He looked like he was
having fun doing it, as well.

River Cow Orchestra -- the improvisational nature of this performance absolutely fascinates me. As writers, we are taught to write, write, edit and rewrite. This group would listen to a poet, and on the second read, start playing. It was entirely unscripted. The results were delightful.

And the award for best workshop... actually, I don't think there could be an award for best workshop. We had a good variety this year and all were high quality. Darcy Leech, however, is the one presenter where I honestly could have sat for another hour or two just soaking up her story. It was one of the most engaging and useful workshops about marketing that I have been to in quite some time. I'd like to be a mouse in her pocket for a few days. I look forward to studying her website -- and reading her book!

Darcy Leech was one of the 2016 KAC Convention Workshop Presenters.

My good friends, Mike Graves and Wendy Devilbiss were the contest managers this year. It has been a delight to meet with them and work with them on this project over the past year. They did a wonderful job of presenting the awards, as well. And it was so much fun to see so many of my friends have their work acknowledged in the contest. (Full disclosure -- I entered one poem and one prose piece this year -- no winners!)

Wendy Devilbiss - Poetry Manager, Roy J. Beckemery - Poet of the Year, Reaona Hemmingway - Prose Writer of the Year, Mike Graves, Prose Contest Manager. Well deserved awards to our writers of the year. It was good to see these two honored.

That message intended just for me... In 15 years as a member of KAC, I believe I have attended 13 conventions. Each year, I have come to expect that at some point during the convention, I will encounter that message that was "just for me." Sometimes it is something in the keynote speech, and sometimes it is something discovered in a workshop. Sometimes it is something found in conversation with another writer at the event. There's always this moment when I think to myself, "THIS is what I came for this year. This is the nugget I've been needing to hear."

This year it happened on Sunday morning. Ann Fell (2x Coffin Award Winner -- Sundrop Sonata in 2016) talked about the process of writing her suspense novel. Her first task was to distinguish the difference between a mystery and a suspense. Ta-da! Bells are ringing. I've been calling my most recent work-in-progress a mystery. Quite clearly, it is a suspense story. I look forward to getting back to it now. In a one-hour presentation, Ann's words opened up for me the problem I was having in completing this novel.

Ann Fell is the author of In the Shadow of the Wind, the 2015 Coffin Memorial Book Award, and Sundrop Sonata, the 2016 Coffin Memorial Book Award. 

Last, but certainly not least, I was thrilled and delighted that two books near and dear to my heart were awarded the first ever "Looks Like a Million" Book Design Award. To Leave a Shadow, by Michael D. Graves, was the winner. MoonStain, poetry by Ronda Miller, received an honorable mention. Both are books I produced as editor and publisher through my very own press, Meadowlark Books. I was also recognized for 15 years of membership in Kansas Authors Club and honored with a service award (Thank for the nomination, Gloria Zachgo!)

Waiting on the Sky, by Cheryl Unruh

Cheryl Unruh, former columnist for the Emporia Gazette and one of my favorite authors, has done it again with her second collection of essays on the state I proudly call home.

In Waiting on the Sky, Cheryl describes Kansas--community and people--in a series of essays that remind us of the joy and peril, the love and the heartbreak of life on the ground in a rectangle state.

We who live on the prairie love our sky. It is as much a part of the landscape as the land itself. White the earth gives us roots and plenty of soft grass on which we can curl our bodies and fall asleep, the sky gives us flight, imagination, a place to go with our eyes, a place to go with our minds.

Cheryl once again makes me want to slow down, take more time to absorb the scenery, spend more time watching the clouds that pass overhead. The book takes us back and forth, from the landscape and experience of being Kansan, to Kansans themselves and glimpses of Cheryl's life growing up on the plains to her life now in the Flint Hills.

I was delighted, of course, to find "Tracy's Hometown" within the pages of this book (even though Cheryl revealed my secret childhood run-away spot). I enjoyed her ruminations on the western Kansas tumbleweed, as well, though I think I'm more appreciative of the wind, in general, than Cheryl. 

Waiting on the Sky is the book to keep on your chairside table, full of word morsels you will want to bite and then nibble again, to take with your morning coffee as you contemplate the start of your day, or to sample with your nighttime tea.

If you haven't picked up your copy yet, head right on over to Quincy Press for ordering instructions. 

See my review of Cheryl's first book, Flyover People, by clicking this link.

Why I Like Hanging with Writers

Many, many years ago I almost didn't join the Kansas Authors Club. I don't remember how I first came across the organization, but I remember not going to a meeting because my eighth grade English teacher was on the membership list. I can't really tell you why that stopped me. I was a pretty good student in school and I have fond memories of that class. I still have some of the projects I completed, most notably a poetry book and a book I put together about my cat. I guess I must have let myself feel intimidated. Luckily, I got over it, and I finally went to a meeting. And my eighth grade English teacher? I've never seen her there... though her name remains on the membership list.

The very first KAC convention that I attended was in Wichita. I only went for the day of workshops and I was inspired enough that I was determined not to miss a minute of the next convention. The following year, however, my district was co-host, so I got to work running the book room as well as attend the whole event. I think that was the year that I truly got hooked.

During that same time I was actively finding my way as a writer. I was involved in a fairly active online writing community and participated in a great email list run for and by writing moms, primarily stay-at-home mothers with kids under age 5 in the house. These virtual communities were wonderful, but not entirely fulfilling. Looking back, I think part of the problem with my online writing communities was how easy it was to completely immerse myself in the thoughts and inspirations of people who were on such similar paths. The information was good. I was learning and lot and making good contacts. But then I would go to a KAC meeting and find myself interacting with writers on a wide variety of paths, from the traditionally published to the still figuring out what they wanted to write, from the romance writers to the academic historians, from the sonnet writers to the whimsical stories about growing older.

The variety always left me feeling energized and full of new ideas. I remember putting programs on the tables at the convention in Hutchinson with several other organizers. Doris Schroder, who would later serve as president of the club, suddenly stopped and said, "You know what I like about spending time with other writers?" Her answer was about how accepted she felt. Something to the tune of writers understanding that it was okay to be different.

Doris and I had a conversation in the elevator this year about that moment. I told her that her spirit of acceptance had really stayed with me and from that convention on, I've made a point of getting to know one new writer each year. Each new writing friend has made my life richer. Most of them have become and remained active members of the club, and I hope they've gotten as much out of membership as I have.

At the end of this year's convention, Doris wrote:

All you "peculiar people"

Getting older (and hopefully wiser) I realize more and more why we enjoy the convention so much and getting together with those who have the same affliction as we do... that of writing.

I actually came home with such peace in my being for that very reason. Each year the conventions seems to get better and better. It must be that writers have a spark of originality in them that has to get out....

Every year in October now I have a standing date with my friends from the Kansas Authors Club. It's something I really look forward to. I've attended twelve conventions in my thirteen years of membership, and I look forward to attending many, many more.

Author Interview: Lindsey Loucks

You may remember my review of The Grave Winner not so long ago, and now I am happy to bring you an interview with the author, Lindsey Loucks, whom I have had the pleasure of getting more acquainted with via email and Facebook/website stalking!

(It’s okay… we authors are mostly flattered by e-stalkers and Lindsey is a brave one, as you will soon learn. Very little scares her.)

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Lindsey Loucks, author of The Grave Winner

Your story takes place in Krapper, Kansas, and, being that you write from my old stomping grounds, I have to admit that I immediately assumed kinship and could visualize every road your main character travelled. You’ve struck the balance I would expect from someone who loves the plains and small towns of the Midwest, yet understands the limitations and frustrations experienced by a teenaged heart growing up there.  How do you explain the ability to affectionately refer to the setting of your story with a word like Krapper?

Excellent question! I grew up in Liberal, Kansas, and when I went to high school, I could not wait to get out of that town.  As a teenager, I think it’s a requirement to hate almost everything, and I was no exception. But since I’ve grown a little wiser, I’ve decided it doesn’t really matter where you live. I think my main character Leigh will realize that eventually. But for now, she lives in Krapper, Kansas.

Sunday Book Review: Maggie Vaults Over the Moon

Maggie Vaults Over the Moon

by Grant Overstake

Maggie Vaults Over the Moon arrived in my mailbox a little more than a week ago and I flipped it open, thinking I'd check out the first chapter or two and then put it on my to-read stack to be reviewed later. A chapter or two wasn't enough, however, I fell right into the story and it became my go-to book this week even though I had very little time for reading.

Right from the start, I was impressed by the setting of this story. Maggie is from a rural Kansas farm family and, except for the fact that she's from the other side of Wichita, much of the setting for this story could have been my own. I never got to drive a truck at harvest time, but I rode along enough when I was a kid that I could imagine myself bump-bumping along in the passenger seat right beside her. If the kittens on the way to the barn and the child's paradise of a hayloft well stocked hadn't already reeled me in, Maggie showing sheep at the 4-H fair entirely won me over. I was also the girl with lambs in 4-H and I was pleased that the author got every detail correct. 

The book opens with a tragedy that also felt immensely and deeply real. I shed a few tears and read quickly, eager to learn how Maggie would cope. The cover and the title were a clue, of course, but it became important to learn how she got there. I even spent an afternoon watching pole vaulters on YouTube because I had no previous experience with the sport and I wanted to be able to more thoroughly visualize Maggie's progress. 

Though the story was well-grounded in a Kansas setting, it had little sparks of the mystical, as well. I was inspired and would recommend this book to all of my young reading friends. It might be categorized as Young Adult Sports Fiction, but it is a story that I think readers of all ages will appreciate.

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Maggie Vaults Over the Moon on Amazon

Author's Website

2013 KAC Writing Conference & State Convention

Visit the KAC website for convention details and registration

Visit the KAC website for convention details and registration

Sunday Book Review: The Grave Winner

The Grave Winner

by Lindsey R. Loucks

Almost as much as finding a new book to read, I love meeting other authors. When I went to Dodge City for my book's release party, my niece mentioned that the librarian at her school was also publishing a first book. Yay for new Kansas authors! I didn't get much chance to visit with Lindsey, but I did download her book as soon as I returned home.

The Grave Winner is a new genre for me and I very much enjoyed the introduction. Categorized as a young adult paranormal fantasy romance, I honestly wasn't sure what I was getting into. I instantly recognized and felt at home in Krapper, Kansas, however, and although the story opened at the graveside of the protagonist's mother (a factor that might have turned me away not so long ago), I quickly decided that Leigh was a girl with spunk and spirit that I was going to like. I appreciated her friend, Jo, as well.

I enjoyed learning about the parameters of Lindsey's paranormal world and the way the characters felt very real (their behavior "typical" of teenagers) within the bounds of this alternate reality. The dead girl next door has risen to walk again, for instance, but beyond her horrible stench and the fact that she turns the grass black where she walks, there doesn't seem to be a lot of concern. She's not a flesh-eating ghoul or anything. She's just a bit sad, perhaps. The people in the book question why she has risen from the dead, but aren't necessarily horrified by it.

The romance was sweet. I enjoyed both potential love interests and couldn't decide which I was rooting for in the end. There were a few characters who became pivotal to the storyline that I wished I could have learned a little more about before all the action got going, but overall it was an enjoyable read.

I look forward to following Lindsey's writing career. Be sure to check out her blog for news and links to a few of her short stories.

Author Interview: Vicki Julian

Vicki Julian is a fellow member of the Kansas Authors Club. I have enjoyed getting to know her through our work together on the state board and recently had the pleasure of reading Vicki's newest book, Simple Things to Make This World a Better Place.

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Simple Things to Make this World a Better Place is just that. There’s nothing particularly hard about spreading positive energy. Yet, we could all use a few reminders, now and then, that a simple change in the way we think, behave or respond to a person or situation can go a long way toward making a difference, even if just for one person at a time. Why were you the person to write such a book? What inspired you to collect these tidbits and put them in book form?

You are correct when you say it isn’t difficult to spread positive energy. In fact, one point of the book is that it doesn’t take a large sum of money, countless hours of volunteering or great effort to make a positive difference in this world. I was inspired to write this book while sitting in church and listening to the pastor read Hebrews 10:24, “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” It immediately evoked action from me so I feel both blessed and chosen to have written this book. I truly loved writing it although it took me two years to do so. It was written, so not just I could make a difference, but so that everyone could.

Author Interview: Max Yoho

Max Yoho is one of my friends from the Kansas Authors Club. I have been hooked on Max's stories since first reading The Revival. I enjoy giving his books as gifts as they are laugh-out-loud entertainment. Max recently agreed to answer a few questions about his career as an author.

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 I understand that you came to writing as something of a second career after retiring from nearly four decades of work as a machinist. As a reader, however, I have to believe that you’ve practiced the art of storytelling for many years. Did you always imagine a book in your future?

It never crossed my mind to become a writer until shortly before my retirement. I never imagined a book in my future, and it only came about when a short story I was writing became too long to be a “short” story. It was based on a real event, in which I had only a peripheral part. I only learned the full story from my grandfather years later. It was a very serious story about a revival meeting, but I don't do "serious" well. My characters kept making me laugh, so I told them, "Go ahead. You write the damn story," and they did. This story turned into my first novel, The Revival. It may be the closest I've written to what my real life was like, growing up in small-town Colony, KS.

Author Interview: Kevin Rabas

Kevin Rabas is a writer and a poet. He co-directs the creative writing program at Emporia State University and I have been honored to get to know him through Emporia Writers, an informal, independent meeting group of the Kansas Authors Club.

As Kevin has been a great inspiration to me, both for getting me to step outside my comfort zone and try new things with my writing, and as someone whose words and encouragement really helped me to get focused on getting my first novel published, I was very pleased when he agreed to participate in an author interview for my website.


Your book, Spider Face, is a collection of short-shorts that often read as much like poetry as prose. Like much of your poetry, the pieces feel very intimate, like stories some might share only with a close friend. As a reader, I feel as if I have been allowed to look through a book of snapshots of your past.

Spider Face is filled with works that follow the path the confessional poets (Lowell, Plath, Sexton) carved out. The first section is a series of shorts that culminate in an HIV test. I wouldn't casually talk about that, but it's been on my mind since the early '90s as a story I wanted to tell. Writing that series of interlocking stories provided me a way to say it, and a way to tell it with both humor and darkness, with a kind of narrative pull beyond what a quick anecdote holds. That section of the book talks frankly about sex and romance, about initiation into the world of adult knowledge. Much of the book touches upon that subject or theme. My aim is to do that with frankness and delicacy at once, without ever being gratuitous.

In terms of reading like poetry, sound is very important to me. I'm not for sound OVER sense, but very close. The line between these two is thin. If it doesn't sound good, I edit it until it does. Or I abandon that line, that paragraph, even that entire work.

How autobiographical are the stories in Spider Face? Would you classify them as memories conjured and captured at a later date or fodder mined from your personal archives. Are you writing your life all the time, or writing the memories that stick with you?

Although I take liberties to make the story sound, much of the work in this collection started with an "event" in my life. I'm not writing creative nonfiction here, but sometimes it's close. I'd say two-thirds of each story is true. I had to invent what I didn't remember. Other times, a change made the story better, more compelling, more poignant, more archetypal. One of the stories "Three AM" is taken from Japanese myth. So, that is not rooted in my life. The others are, for the most part. Some are stories others told me, such as "Spider Face." I wrote and rewrote the title story, off and on, for about five years.

What made you decide to present these as prose rather than poetry?

Dialog and action seem to function better in stories. In my own poetry, there are only about so many lines of dialog I can get away with before I begin to think: This would work better as a story or a play. Also, figuratively, there's more room to move around in a story. A poem, for me, usually has a smaller court, a smaller room. I know there are lots of good long poems. At that time, I preferred to turn longer stories or narratives into short shorts. Plus, I admire short short stories, and I wanted to try my hand at them, with some seriousness. I had written a handful. I wanted to write enough to fill out a collection. Furthermore, the "Elizabeth and KC" section called for interlocking short short stories. I wanted to explore how that would work.

How does your work with students influence your writing? Is there an added pressure to write/publish, beyond the expectations of any other university professor?

As Co-Director of the Emporia State University Creative Writing Program, and as a teacher within that program, daily I am called upon to lead and mentor a group of creative writers, a group of individuals who have just started on their path towards craftsmanship and towards eventual publication. I see it as part of my role to write well and publish so that I can guide my students more securely along that path. If I fall behind and don't know the market, how can I show my students the way? I can't know all of the market, but I can know a good deal of it.

As professors, we are expected to publish. Creative writers publish stories and poems and such, and literature professors publish scholarly articles. Sometimes professors do both. I think the expectations are reasonable, and those expectations keep teachers current in the field. It is not easy for a creative writer to publish, though, in that most small press journals publish less than one percent of what they receive. Odds are better for scholars. However, every kind of publication has its advantages. Anyone can enjoy a short story.

You are a multi-faceted artist, and I think I have heard you perform on drums as often as I have heard you read poetry. I am struck by the very rhythmic quality of your poetry. Which came first for you, music or poetry?

My mother worked as a reporter and editor for a small town paper. Sometimes she would take my sister and me along on the job. I'd hold her tape recorder when she went to chase a fire. I'd play with the waxer in the production room, pasting abandoned copy on the wall, on my arms. So, writing came first. My mother encouraged it.

I started music in fifth grade, like many. I wanted to play sax because Huey Lewis and the News had a saxophonist who soloed. I had a bad overbite, though, and my dentist said the saxophone reed would only make it worse. So, it was trumpet or trombone or drums. I chose drums.

In terms of combining poetry and music, the 1958 MGM LP *Weary Blues*, a collaboration between Poet Langston Hughes and Bassist/Composer Charles Mingus, was where it started for me. I listened to that recording at the MARR Sound Archive at UMKC in 1994. I admired it greatly. I shelved records, while that LP spun. I wanted something like that, I thought. Around 2000, I started something like it, reading poetry while KC jazz saxophonist Josh Sclar played. We played monthly at The Cup & Saucer in the KC Rivermarket area (4/Delaware). I drummed, too.

What do you do in your “spare” time… when you are not writing or teaching writing?

I like photography. So, I take a lot of pictures. I read a lot. I grade. I watch movies with my wife, Lisa. She loves movies. I play games with my son. He likes D&D. I drum.

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Kevin Rabas co-directs the Creative Writing Program at Emporia State University and edits Flint Hills Review. He has four books: Bird's Horn & Other Poems; Lisa's Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner; Spider Face: Stories; and Sonny Kenner's Red Guitar.

Website: www.kevinrabas.com

Kevin's books on Amazon.

Spider Face at Lulu.com

Additional note from Kevin: I love to sign books and write messages. So, if you order a book directly from me, I'm happy to write in it. I'm on Facebook. Feel free to friend me. Also, local and regional bookstores often carry my books, such as the Emporia Town Crier, the ESU Memorial Union Bookstore, The Raven in Lawrence, etc.

Local bookstores are a great place to hang out--and to buy books.

Sunday Book Review: Shadow on the Hill

Shadow on the Hill

by Diana Staresinic-Deane

Another area writer published a book about the same time I published mine. I "knew" Diana Staresinic-Deane from our local library. She used to work there; I still frequent there. We'd never really had a conversation, however, until we struck one up via email about the time our books were coming out.

Diana's was a fascinating project. Shadow on the Hill tells the true story of a 1925 murder that took place just one county east of here. Florence Knoblock was brutally murdered on May 30, 1925, and her husband was tried twice, but never convicted, for the deed. It was a heart wrenching story, vividly illustrated by the author who spent nearly three years researching to pull together the facts of the case.

I downloaded the book late on a Sunday evening and began reading. After only a few chapters, I remembered what a pansy I am. I got up to lock all the doors and windows in my house and had to find some fluff to read for a few hours before I could go to bed. Still, the opening chapters stuck in my dreams for several nights! 

After that, I limited myself to daytime reading so I didn't carry the story into my dreams so completely. 

Though the story is factual, bringing together countless newspaper articles, trial transcripts and interviews, it is told in narrative form. I found myself examining all the characters as they were introduced. I won't tell you who I think did it, but I loved the way Diana dropped in pieces of information and clues along the way. In fact, I spent a couple more hours reviewing the evidence once I finished the book! 

Aside from the gory details of the murder, I also loved the glimpses of Emporia's past. As someone who has recently adopted Emporia as a hometown, the story filled in a lot of blanks for me regarding the status and reputation of William Lindsey White (who passed away in 1973), in particular.

I highly recommend Shadow on the Hill to both the history and the mystery buffs out there. It is a stellar combination of the two. 

Author Interview: Gloria Zachgo

I first met Gloria Zachgo at a Kansas Authors Club convention. She was a new author with her first published book in hand. Since I have always been intrigued by the story behind my favorite stories, I thought I’d take this opportunity to interview Gloria about the process of writing her book.

Tell me about writing your story.  How did your book come to life?

I’m in a writing group that often writes on prompts.  It was one of those prompts – a little toy rocking horse and a gingerbread man – that led to a story.  After I wrote the story I filed it away in a notebook and didn’t think about it again until I took a writing workshop.  Driving home from that workshop my rocking horse story kept coming back to me.  I saw a young woman in a small Kansas town walking down the street, all alone.  The local sheriff saw her and was shocked – but why?  She wasn’t a local, yet he thought he knew her.  With inspiration from the workshop, I started writing so that I might know the answers myself.  Ironically, the finished book and the original story are nothing alike.

Who is your favorite character in your book and why?

Probably Barbara – because she reminds me so much of my own mother.  But that  question is really hard to answer, because each character became real to me.  I love developing characters, from people I’ve met and known, and even strangers that I’m just curious about.  I was told I even made Blaze likeable.  It was easy to do that, because every dog I’ve ever known has its own personality traits too.  

Were there any characters who surprised you?  Characters who didn’t end up being quite what you thought they would be when you started writing your story?  Tell me about how they changed.

All of them changed as the story developed and they became more real.  But Katherine was the one who changed the most in my own mind.  She started out cold hearted.  Then she became vulnerable and a softer side started to come through. 

When writing The Rocking Horse, did you outline and then write, or did the story develop chapter by chapter?  Did you know when you started where you were going to end up?

No, I didn’t know where I was going to end up as the story kept changing with the development of each new character.  I didn’t use an outline for The Rocking Horse.  I  titled each chapter, so that I after I’d completed my manuscript, I could weave them  together into the book.  I made an epilog on the first try.  It didn’t work right.  When I tried again, I ended with a chapter that might let me go back to Shady Creek someday.  That’s not happening yet.  I have another story to tell now – totally different than this one.  I’ve had a lot of requests to find out what happened to several characters (especially Larry).  I hope I get the opportunity to visit them all again, but for now I have to write what’s in my heart. 

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Gloria Zachgo grew up on a farm in a small Kansas community where neighbors were friends and family.  She rode her horse Nellie over pastures where the buffalo once roamed, and she attended one of the last one-room schoolhouses in the country.  Is it any wonder that she loves nature and her own independence?

Gloria married her high school sweetheart shortly after finishing business school.  They lived out of state for a short time.  When they found their way back to Kansas, Gloria ran a small business out of her home while her children were small.  When the kids left home, she pursued her interests in painting and later in writing.  When she joined a local writer’s group,  she explored writing fiction, and knew she had found her true love. 

Gloria told very few people that she was writing The Rocking Horse.  Writing in the early mornings after her husband left for work, she spent nearly a year working on the novel.   When she had a completed manuscript, it was a surprise for her friends, family, and her weekly writing group, and when she shared it with them, they encouraged her to get it published. 

The Rocking Horse was published in 2011 and has recently won “Honorable Mention” in the 20^th Annual Writer’s Digest Self Published Book Awards.

The Rocking Horse can be found at:

• your local book store
• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Smashwords
• Follow Gloria on Facebook

You can find my original review of The Rocking Horse here.

Sunday Book Review: Me and Aunt Izzy

Me and Aunt Izzy

by Max Yoho

Max Yoho is one of my favorite Kansas authors, both in person and in the pages of his books. His love of language shines through his writing and he is obviously a story-teller all the way deep down to his core.

Eleven-year-old Jeffie was in trouble for burning down the outhouse. His punishment? A summer spent with Great Aunt Queen Isabella of Spain, aka Aunt Izzy. A little time with the family matriarch was sure to set him right. 

Somewhat reluctantly at first, the boy embarks on a summer that includes Indians, Jesse James, and a durned girl named Lucille who can cuss and run fast as a bullet. Jeffie also continues his quest to enhance his vocabulary one random word at a time.  

Don't get me wrong, though. In this book, Max Yoho manages to provide more than just light-hearted entertainment. As someone who has been accused of being somewhat of a bathroom connoisseur, Max opened my mind to something I had previously spent little time considering... the impact of indoor plumbing on the modern human psyche.

Upon the completion of the new indoor plumbing: "He pulled the chain and Niagara Falls itself couldn't have made more noise. And that's when I realized I could never use the indoor plumbing. It would be like bragging! It would be like saying, 'Look here, world. I've done it!' Pulling that chain would be calling the attention of everybody within forty miles to the fact that Jefferson Davis Johnson had peed in the new indoor plumbing."

I swear I have not gone to the bathroom since that I did not reminisce on this line.

Sunday Book Review: Fifty Shades of Santa

 Yeah, that was my husband's reaction when he saw the title of my latest holiday purchase, as well. Well this isn't really that kind of book. Fifty Shades of Santa: 12 Nice, (not Naughty) Humorous Holiday Romances is a collection of short stories published by Welkin Press. I'm not typically drawn to reading romance, but I am often drawn to short stories. This book contains one called One Cool Cat, by Peg Nichols, and it was my hook to buy this book.

 Peg is one of the many wonderful people I have "collected" as friends via my membership in the Kansas Authors Club. She is warm, adventurous and always has a kind and encouraging word ready for an in-progress writer (such as myself). As long as I've known Peg, I've never really had the opportunity to read much of her work. One Cool Cat did not disappoint. At the beginning of the story, the cat's name is Outside, and I immediately began picturing the many directions the story might be headed. A down and out family moving to a remote cabin, it easily could have been the start of the type of horror story I might have enjoyed reading in my teens. As a "cat person" I always worry a little that the cat might end up the bad guy. 

 No spoilers, but little Outside found his way in. As the subtitle of the book promises, these are "nice" holiday romance stories, and when I was done reading I was thinking that I don't spend nearly enough time reading nice these days. It was very pleasant to drift off to sleep with a smile on my face rather than a chill in my bones.

 Peg Nichols, thank you for hooking me up with some pleasant holiday stories to warm me up for what should be a happy holiday season. Now that I've had the pleasure of reading your short story, I shall enjoy the rest of the stories the book has to offer, as well.

 *reposted from my previous blog entry on 3/23/2013 TS

Sunday Book Review: Making It Home

Making it Home: My year as a middle-aged runaway

by Liz Moore

I’m not even sure how to begin to say just how much I enjoyed this book. Let’s call it an adventure story for women approaching middle age. It’s a book about that thing we’ve often imagined ourselves doing. At least, I have always loved the idea of living elsewhere, getting to know new places and people by becoming a part of the community, and living (for a while, at least) without ties or roots or personal history.

Liz Moore was one of the presenters at the 2011 Kansas Authors Club Convention. I was so enthralled by her story that I purchased the book online for my Kindle PC free e-reader almost first thing when I got home. (For some reason I was under the impression that the book was only available for Kindle, but I now see that it is available in paperback, as well, which is all the better because this book would make a great gift.)

Liz gave herself a gift for her fiftieth birthday. She packed her car and began a cross country journey that would take her from Texas to Arizona to Oregon to Iowa to Vermont. She selected small towns along the way and lived in them, a few months at a time, working for temp agencies and doing things like cleaning and waitressing as she went.

Liz writes her story so wonderfully that you feel yourself along for the ride, wondering how she’s going to find affordable housing and where she will work next. You learn a little bit about each place she stays. The people she meets along the way are all so wonderfully human, and Liz’s ability to settle into a new place and a new routine constantly amazed me.

The year didn’t go exactly as she had planned, but even the way she incorporated the heartache and the sorrow into the story made it just that much better. As the title suggests, she eventually makes it home.

I’ve recommended this book to my book club. I think anyone who has ever experienced even a bit of wanderlust would appreciate Liz’s story.

 *reposted from my previous blog entry on 3/23/2013 TS

Sunday Book Review: The Jenny Cain Mystery Series

As my current work-in-progress is a mystery (my first), I’ve found a lot of my leisure reading leaning in that direction, as well. My grandmother and my aunt were big fans of the mystery genre. I remember staying overnight with Grandma and flipping through the pages, at night, of the dozens of Ellery Queen’s that were stacked neatly on her headboard.

I’ve found myself less-than-satisfied, however, with the cozy mysteries I’ve picked off the shelf at various bookstores in the last few months and at the library, with so many options, I’ve had trouble committing to any one author. I finally took a look at my bookshelf and decided to take a more methodical approach to my reading with an author I already knew and loved.

Nancy Pickard’s career as an author began with the Jenny Cain mystery series. I started with her first book, A Generous Death and immediately liked Nancy’s heroine, Jenny Cain. It has been fun to read the stories and watch the characters develop. Each book has also had a little introduction or bit on writing by the author or an editor, as well. These might be the pieces that many readers ignore, but I cherish the insights to the writing process when I’m reading a story. It helps to have Nancy’s voice in my head, as well, as I’ve been fortunate to listen to her speak at two different Kansas Authors Club events.

As I write this, I have completed Say No to Murder and Marriage is Murder (my favorite so far), and am just getting started on the book, I.O.U. Initially, I thought I’d just read a book or two of the series, but I’ve enjoyed them enough I just may read through to the end of the series.

Post Script: I did read all the way through to the end of them, and I enjoyed every page.

 *reposted from my previous blog entry on 3/23/2013 TS

Sunday Book Review: The Rocking Horse

The Rocking Horse

by Gloria Zachgo

Every year at the Kansas Authors Club convention, I make a point of meeting and getting to know someone I’ve never met before. In Coffeyville this year, I was able to share a table at breakfast with new Kansas Authors Club member and new author, Gloria Zachgo, and her husband Ron. Bonus! A new member to add to my writing friend collection and an autographed book.

Gloria's first novel, The Rocking Horse, is available through Create Space. It can also be found on Amazon.

The story takes place in Kansas and completely passes my test for a Kansas book. The author obviously knows the state and appreciates its people. It was easy, as a reader, to settle into a setting that was at once familiar, though fictitious.

The Rocking Horse is a story of suspense and mystery. It examines the effects on a small town of a decades-old, brutal murder, and the characters, who are immediately likeable, finally get some closure. As happy as endings can get in a story that starts out with such violence, this one is tops.

I thoroughly enjoyed Gloria’s first novel and am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

 *reposted from my previous blog entry on 3/23/2013 TS