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| NOV | DEC |

December Member News
    Mark Bouton, District 2, Carbondale, a new KAC member who has attended District 1 meetings, signed copies of his brand new mystery novel Max Conquers the Cosmos at a book party on Dec. 3, 2003 at The Raven Bookstore, Lawrence. Mark was a veteran FBI agent who loves to study the universe. His protagonist, Max Austin, an ex-FBI agent turned private eye, solves crimes through his knowledge of astronomy. The book is published by Five Star, Waterville, Maine. Other authors at the party included Sally Goldenbaum, Pok Chi Lau, Frances Kite, and Deborah Roden. 12/7/03
   Greg German, District 2, Kansas City, Kansas, has a poem “The 7th Day of Harvest” in the December 2003 issue of Comstock Review , Vol. 17, no. 2. 12/2/03
    Tom Mach, District 2, Lawrence, gave a brief presentation on “Bleeding Kansas” and the Quantrill Raid and signed copies of his new novel Sissy! on Dec. 6, 2003 at Framewoods of Topeka. Sissy! is set in Kansas during 1862-1863. One woman’s anger at the brutal murder of her parents leads to an encounter with a slave child’s guardian angel on a Civil War battlefield. The cover of Sissy! features a painting of this scene by Kansas artist Ernst Ulmer. 12/7/03

November Member News
   Greg German, District 2, Kansas City, Kansas, had his poem “Seasoning” published in the Kansas City Star's ARTS section's “ Poet's Corner” on Sunday, November 30, 2003. 11/21/03
    Robert D. McManes, District 2, Scranton, is featured in an interview with a few selected haiku online in Simply Haiku. Mac also had a poem “The Catalog” published by Poem Niederngasse in its Oct/Nov issue. Another poem “Each memory, a fading poem” appeared in the first issue of a new e-zine Swooping Hawk Quarterly. 11/23/03

October Member News
Tom Mach, District 2, Lawrence, has a poem, "Life Tunnels," published recently on poetry.com. Poems are listed alphabetically by title or search for the author's name. 10/01/03

May Member News
Ottawa Middle School Writing Contest
Barbara Curry, Katherine Borghardt, Joann Williams and Tom Mach presented writing contest awards and certificates to participating students at an all-school assembly at the Ottawa Middle School. District 2 sponsored the contest in connection with KAC’s Writers in the Schools Program. The theme for both prose and poetry was “A Kansas Tornado.” Turnout and entries were excellent. When we judged them, the general consensus was “Who says kids can’t write anymore?” We awarded poetry books to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place poetry winners in all three grades (6th, 7th, and 8th) and a book on writing for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place prose winners. Honorable Mention awards were also given, and every participant received a certificate. 5/11/03

R. D. McManes, District 2, Scranton, has a poem "Mountains of the Mind" in the May/June Baroque Review, a new e-zine focusing on art, photography, and poetry. Each issue has a specific theme. There's a forum where you can place your work for consideration. "Clone-a-poem" is also scheduled to appear in Newtopia in May. 5/28/03

April News
Awards for our District 2 2003 Writing Contest were presented by Ruth Bahr, Fort Scott, at our April meeting. Winning entries were read. Results were as follows:

Poetry Contetst
Classic
   1st Place... “The Old House” —Norma Osborne
   2nd Place... “The Vigil” —Marie Marshall
   3rd Place... “A Likeness” —Robert McManes
   1st HM... “Villanelle” —Marie Marshall
   2nd HM... “Weathering Spring” —Marie Marshall
   3rd HM... “Trips My Trigger” —Robert McManes

Light Verse
   1st Place... “The Wooly Worm’s Picnic” —Beverly Lyons
   2nd Place... “Kaw Valley Nocturne” —Norma L. Osborne
   3rd Place... “Treat Me Gently” —Marie Marshall

Free Verse
   1st Place... “His Place” —Jo Grimes
   2nd Place... “Memories” —Beverly Lyons
   3rd Place... “Looking Up” —Beverly Lyons
   1st HM... “Meteorological Molestation” —Dianne Palka
   2nd HM... “The Migration” —Dianne Palka
   3rd HM... “Prayer for the Ordinary” —Jean Jackson

Haiku
   1st Place... “Mortality Senryu Series” —Dianne Palka
   2nd Place... “A red tailed hawk…” —Beverly Lyons
   3rd Place... “After a shower…” —Beverly Lyons
   1st HM... “Vertical Haiku” —Robert McManes
   2nd HM... “Winter trees…” —Robert McManes
   3rd HM... “After the snowfall…” —Marie Marshall

Prose Contest
Short Stories
   1st Place... “A Short Story in Two Parts” —Katherine Borghardt
   2nd Place... “Project Completed” —Tom Mach
   3rd Place... “Precious Commodity” —Joann Williams
   1st HM... “An End To It All” —Robert McManess

Children’s Stories
   1st Place... “Penelope” —Marie Marshall
   2nd Place... “The Greatest Gift” —Marie Marshall
   3rd Place... “Marcie and the Window Seat” —Beverly Lyons

Humorous Articles
   1st Place... “Three Toe Joe” —Robert McManes
   2nd Place... “Summers With Lulabelle” —Beverly Lyons
   3rd Place... “Jerry Goes To Washington” Beverly Lyons
   1st HM... “A Very Merry Christmas” —Marie Marshall
   2nd HM... “A Car Is A Car” —Beverly Lyons
   3rd HM... “Westward Ho the Motorhome” —Joann Williams

Non-Fiction
   1st Place... “Pride of Kansas” —Beverly Lyons
   2nd Place... “Wrapping Up the Old Year” —Marie Marshall
   3rd Place... “Two Train Rides” —Barbara Curry
   1st HM... “Dear Dad” —Beverly Lyons
   2nd HM... “Growing Up With an Astute Mother” —Marie Marshall
   3rd HM... “Mom’s Piano” —Beverly Lyons 5/11/03

Apr. Member News
   Each Friday night in April the Lawrence Arts Center presented a Lawrence Poetry Series, with local and regional poets reading work in a coffeehouse atmosphere. The series gave the public a chance to meet nine poets over four weeks and purchase books to be autographed. Refreshments were available.
   The Lawrence Poetry Series was sponsored by 219 Press and the Lawrence Arts Center. See also: Lawrence Journal-World article.
   Featured poets included:

Mueni Mutuku
Born the first night of February 1976, Mueni is the fourth of six children, the first of two females. She was born in a rural district of Kenya where she stayed until she was five when her father migrated to Zimbabwe. Mueni acquired a deep love of books in her teenage years, but it wasn't until she came to America in 1997 that she became inspired by poetry. Her first book, Solitude and the Soul, was published in 2001.

Michael Poage
Michael Poage was born in Virginia and traveled extensively with his military family. He went to Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, where he received a B.A. in Social Sciences. After college he spent a brief time studying theology in Los Angeles and then worked a variety of jobs - office clerk, parent in a half-way house,laborer for a landscape construction company, grocery clerk, teacher and rancher in California and Montana. In 1973 he received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Montana after studying with Richard Hugo and Madeline DeFrees. He then taught in a two-room school for five years while raising sheep and cattle on a ranch 60 miles east of Missoula in the Blackfoot Valley. In 1982 he resumed theological studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary, receiving his M.Div. degree in 1985. That same year he moved to Kansas to pastor a church in Council Grove until 1991, moved to Lawrence to serve as associate pastor at Plymouth Congregational Church and in 1993 moved to Wichita where he is currently pastor of Fairmount United Church of Christ and does adjunct teaching at Wichita State University and Friends University. Mr. Poage has four books of poems published: Born, Black Stone Press, San Francisco, 1975; Handbook of Ornament, Black Stone Press, San Francisco, 1979; The Gospel of Mary, Woodley Press, Topeka, 1997; god won't overlook us, Penthe Press, Lawrence, 2001. The journals, Roanoke Review and Hidden Oak, have recently accepted two of his poems for upcoming issues.

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Philip Heldrich
Philip Heldrich is the author of two books: Good Friday (Texas Review Press, 2000), Winner of the X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, and the forthcoming Out Here in the Out There: Essays in a Region of Superlatives, Winner of the Midlist Press First Series Award for Creative Nonfiction. A Kansas Arts Commission Artist Grant Recipient and a Winner of the Council on National Literatures Fiction Award, he co-directs the Creative Writing Program at Emporia State University in Kansas. In addition to his work in such journals as The North American Review, Connecticut Review, Poet Lore, and others, his fiction has been anthologized in such collections as Texas Bound Book III: 22 Texas Stories (Southern Methodist University Press, 2001) and Our Working Lives (Bottom Dog, 2000). He also directs the Bluestem Press, co-edits Flint Hills Review, serves on the Board of the Bob Woodley Memorial Press, and is the Program Director for the Southwest American & Popular Culture Associations.

Jason Wesco
Jason Wesco was born in Marion, Indiana in 1973. He has since spent significant pieces of his life in Wabash, Vincennes and Muncie, Indiana, Bowling Green, Ohio and Lawrence, Kansas. He began writing poetry in 1992. Between the Letters, his first collection, was published in 2002 and will be used this summer as a college text (!). Jason is the founder of 219 Press (www.219press.com), a small press dedicated to publishing quality works of poetry and non-fiction by local and regional authors. Forthcoming titles from 219 include Stories from a Life in Progress by Lou Ann Thomas and Senegal Blues by Brian Daldorph. Jason also conducts workshops for seasoned and aspiring authors on self-publishing. He is the proud father of Poetry Out Loud: The Lawrence Poetry Series. Jason now lives in Perry, Kansas with an artist and a mongrel.

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Jeanie Wilson
Jeanie Wilson's book, Uncurling, was published by Mid-America Press in 2000. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. The Kansas Library Association and the Kansas State School for the Visually Handicapped sponsored a statewide exhibit from 1983-1986 of Ms. Wilson's poetry and photography, and Governor Carlin gave special recognition for this achievement at the state capitol in 1986. She was awarded the Barbara Storck Creative Writing Award for her poetry. Jeanie has presented her poems and short stories at numerous readings, including universities, conferences, and other venues. As a poet, she has lectured at The University of Missouri-Kansas City, The University of Kansas, Rockhurst University and Avila University and appeared on radio and television programs. For the last five years, she has served as the Director of the Title V-A program, a federally-funded education program that serves over 400 Missouri schools and 100,000 students. Prior to Title V-A, she was the Director of Field Services for Educational Systems at The University of Kansas for five years, training teachers nationwide. She has taught English at the secondary and university levels.

Thomas Zvi Wilson
Thomas Zvi Wilson's poetry book, Deliberate and Accidental Acts, was published by the University of Missouri-Kansas City's BkMk Press and was a runner up for the Thorpe Menn Award and nominated for the Byron Caldwell Smith Award. His poems have appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies. He has guest-lectured often at the University of Kansas, along with seven other mid-America universities, and has given numerous readings at various venues. Wilson was appointed a Poet at Large in 1998 by the Midwest Center for the Literary Arts, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and served several years as a panel judge for Helicon Nines Marianne Moore Poetry Award, as well as UMKC's John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. He has peer-edited, co-edited and designed numerous books of poetry and he mentors a handful of creative writing graduate students. In 2001 he founded and has since directed and hosted The Writer's Place Poetry Reading Series at the Johnson County Central Resource Library. He served on the board of directors of the Midwest Center for the Literary Arts. Wilson is also a painter and sculptor with 14 one-person exhibits to his credit, including seven in Manhattan galleries. His work is included in over 25 museum and university collections, and he has completed a number of public sculpture and mural commissions.

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Denise Low
Denise Low teaches creative writing and American Indian Studies classes at Haskell Indian Nations University. She has won fellowships and other awards for writing and scholarship from the Lannan Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Kansas Arts Commission, Roberts Foundation, and Poetry Society of America (Pami Jurassi). She is a member of Wordcraft Circle, Associated Writing Programs, Woodley Press, and Cottonwood magazine. She lives with her husband, Tom Weso, in Lawrence, Kansas. She can be reached at deniselow9@hotmail.com

Serina Allison Hearn
Serina Allison Hearn was born in Trinidad, West Indies. Studied fashion in the late seventies at St Martins School of Art in London, UK. Sold her exclusive designer collections to establishments such as Harrods. In 1986 she married and immigrated to New York. She has lived, in two year increments, in New York, Toronto, Ann
Arbor, Princeton and now has two daughters with her first husband, and three step children with her 2nd husband, who is a native of Lawrence, Kansas, where she has resided for the last six years and which she finally calls home. Together they restore hundred year old houses, contribute to the rising demand for good rental accommodation, raise their children and in the quiet moments of the night she writes poetry. Her first book: Dreaming the Bronze Girl published a year ago by Mid-America Press Inc was nominated as one of the top hundred best reads for the year 2002 by the Kansas City Star.

Brian Daldorph
Born in Harrogate, England, Brian Daldorph now lives in Lawrence and teaches English at the University of Kansas. He edits Coal City Review, a poetry journal, and is the fiction editor for I-70 Review. He has two full-length books of poems, The Holocaust and Hiroshima: Poems, and Outcasts, both from Mid-America Press. He has a new book forthcoming(!!!) from 219 Press, Senegal Blues. Brian has taught in England, Japan and Senegal, and runs a pretty fast marathon too. That was him, wasn't it, running the Beijing Marathon in 2001?

Feb. Member News
    Tom Mach, District 2, Lawrence, recently has had columns published on the internet. Tom’s theme, something all of us could heed, is “How Not to Get Published.” Check out his most recent column at www.hazelst.com/writer/column.htm. The page also provides a drop-down list to help in finding his previous columns. You’ll laugh and maybe learn something, too. 2/21/03