Celebrate with author Lakshmi Kampampati: You are Invited!

Join us on Friday, August 28, 2026, at 6pm

Watermark Books & Cafe

4701 E Douglas Ave

Wichita, KS 67218

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About the Book

In Uncharted Paths: A Memoir of Teaching and Learning, Wichita teacher Lakshmi Kambampati shares the most important lessons of her career: not the ones she taught, but the ones she learned from students and communities around the world.

About the Author

Lakshmi Kambampati is a Wichita-based educator, world traveler, and author of Uncharted Paths: A Memoir of Teaching and Learning. Born in India, she moved to North America as a young wife and mother and built a new life while adapting to unfamiliar cultures and circumstances. After settling in Wichita, she taught mathematics, history, and English in public schools, colleges, and alternative educational settings.

Her passion for teaching and learning eventually took her far beyond the traditional classroom. She served as a Fulbright Scholar in India, a two-time Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Liberia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and a U.S. Department of State English Language Fellow in Tanzania. She has also participated in educational and cultural programs in Japan, Tajikistan, and other parts of the world. Along the way, she embraced unexpected adventures, including scuba diving and skydiving in her sixties.

In Uncharted Paths, Lakshmi shares her experiences with warmth, honesty, humility, and humor. Her memoir explores teaching, travel, immigration, cultural adaptation, resilience, family, personal growth, and the courage to pursue new opportunities at every stage of life.

The book will especially appeal to educators, travelers, immigrants and newcomers to the United States, women seeking new possibilities, and readers interested in other cultures. It also offers encouragement to young adults beginning their journeys and to older adults who believe—or would like to believe—that it is never too late to take a new path, accept a challenge, or discover a larger world.

Personal Stories Written with Heart

 

105 Meadowlark Reader — personal stories written with heart Hello, friends! 105 Meadowlark Reader shares our collective stories, experiences, viewpoints, perspectives—what it’s like to live in Kansas at this particular time in history. These personal essays and true stories in 105 reveal our moments of doubt, of glory. They show our challenges and our victories. Some authors invite us inside their childhood homes, introduce us to their families, their farms, their animals. Some write about their darkest days, others take us on hilarious adventures. Tracy and I are truly impressed with what writers submit to 105 Meadowlark Reader, our Kansas journal of creative nonfiction. Below, we share brief excerpts from three essays, tiny glimpses inside this journal that we treasure so much. If 105 is new to you, we’d love it if you would give it a try. We have subscriptions available as well as single copies of 105. Many of our back issues are only $10. Thank you. We are so appreciative of our writers, so appreciative of our readers. Cheryl Subscribe or buy a single issue Excerpts from “The Hard Ground” by Eric Kirsch: “You wear a badge long enough and it doesn’t feel like a thing that’s yours. It’s something you borrow. When I came home from the wars, it all came home with me too. It hurt, still hurts, yet I got the better deal now in all this here ocean of prairie called Wabaunsee County. This is my post.” *** “There’s a kind of stitch you make in the wounds of the world when you protect the small ones. Like binding your own injury by closing someone else’s. I reckon it’s the only real salvation we get in this life. Being useful to someone. Every child I helped keep safe was one more person who could believe in the idea that what happened to them would never be okay, yet at least one person on this planet finally did something about it that mattered.” “The Hard Ground” by Eric Kirsch Issue #10, Work Eric Kirsch, Wabaunsee County Sheriff Excerpts from “A Loan of Uncertain Terms” by Julie Stielstra: ”I have seen the Universal Cat Distribution System at work over the course of many years, and in many places. The Kansas branch office seems to have a particularly efficient and successful operation. The first one was Smike.” *** “His eyes were nearly gunked shut. We could not catch him. The next day, we found him stuck in the engine compartment of the truck, but when we tried to pry him out, he dropped straight down out of sight and scampered away. But he kept showing up, and he sure kept eating.” *** “I set up a crate with a pen around it, put food in it, and captured him when he ventured in. I held him struggling in my gloved hands. He set his little teeth oh so gently against my knuckles, then collapsed against my chest, purring. He needed so many meds I had to keep a spreadsheet. He was named for the tragic, sickly orphaned boy in Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby.” “A Loan of Uncertain Terms” by Julie Stielstra Issue #12, Borrowed (Available in November) Julie Stielstra Excerpts from “Logjam” by Dave Leiker: “Randy crawled to the front of the canoe. I slipped into the rear as we pushed off into the quick flow of muddy water. Unskilled canoeists, the boat wobbled as we shifted weight left and right to gain equilibrium. My water entrances are like that, moments of quick chaos and overcompensation until some stability is gained. It’s not a promising audition for navigating a flooding Kansas River.” *** “During my early years I worked as a stock boy in a tiny neighborhood grocery store. A very kind woman helped manage the store, kept the books, and took turns at the cash register. One day her son was lost to the river. That night, I was told, she stood at the riverbank calling out his name. That was half a century ago,  but I still feel the dense, weighted sorrow of that time in my bones.” ”Logjam” by Dave Leiker Issue #9, Luck Dave Leiker What is 105 Meadowlark Reader? 105 Meadowlark Reader is an anthology of true Kansas stories, essays and articles. Pieces are set primarily in Kansas and are written by Kansans and former Kansans. Our contributors are widely-published authors, first-time-published writers, and every level between. Each issue has 30 or so pieces. 105 is a 6x9” paperback, about 180-200 pages. Published twice a year (May and November). Ask for 105 Meadowlark Reader at your Kansas independent bookstore. Or subscribe below. Subscribe to 105 Upcoming issue #12 Borrowed cover photo by Carol Harriman Miller (Available in November) Issues 1-11 Buy a single issue or subscribe Buy all 12 issues Your 105 Team: Tracy Million Simmons, publisher Cheryl Unruh, editor Visit the Meadowlark Bookstore We indie-press with the best of them. Meadowlark Press Emporia, Kansas The Meadowlark Team: Linzi Garcia, Lindsey Bartlett, Emilie Moll, Tracy Million Simmons, Julie Johnson, Rosalie Krenger, Lisa Kindsvater, Evie Simmons, Cheryl Unruh Photo credit: Dave Leiker