Join us for the release of Gravedigger's Daughter, by Cheryl Unruh

Community Invited to Premiere of Cheryl Unruh’s New Memoir and Celebration of Emporia’s Literary Community

 

Emporia, KS—Flyover People essayist Cheryl Unruh, takes the stage for a literary celebration, complete with reading and book signing as Meadowlark Press releases Unruh’s new memoir, Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town, at Lyon County History Center on Saturday, November 13 at 1:00pm.

 

An array of regional books will be available for purchase, including other titles by Unruh, as well as books published by Meadowlark Press.

 

Unruh’s memoir details a small-town childhood as the daughter of a carpenter-father, who also happens to be the town cemetery caretaker. As Cheryl grows, so does her comprehension of her father’s particular maladies, a skin-condition that is not discussed by the family, as well as his struggles with depression. Presented in short vignettes, Gravedigger’s Daughter introduces Unruh’s father from a child’s eye view, and then via observations and interactions that take us through Unruh’s adolescence to adulthood. Divided into three parts, the book covers Unruh’s childhood in Pawnee Rock, her father’s middle-age years when she lived away, and his later years.

 

Unruh grew up in the town of Pawnee Rock in central Kansas, population 400, in the 1960s and 70s. “The stories, or vignettes, are poem-shaped, but each captures a moment in time. I see each one as a snapshot,” Unruh says. “While I will never be able to relate the entirety and complexity of a life, I hope that some of my dad’s weird and wonderful personality shines through.”

 

From Laura Moriarty, author of The Chaperone: “With Gravedigger’s Daughter, Cheryl Unruh has created something so fresh and inviting—a memoir in lean vignettes. Each is moving on its own, and also part of a compelling portrait of a childhood in an isolated town with a dwindling population. Unruh’s details are too specific for sentimentalism, but places and people are observed with a loving gaze that also feels wise and honest. Her father, especially, emerges as both haunted and quietly heroic. What a beautiful book.” 

 

Fans of Cheryl’s two previous collections of vivid Kansas essays, Flyover People (2011 KS Notable Book) and Waiting on the Sky (2015 KS Notable Book), and Walking on Water, her collection of poetry, will delight in this memoir. Unruh hopes that the book will inspire readers to write their own stories “whether they write for their own pleasure or choose to share their stories with family and friends or perhaps even go on to publish their writing.” Unruh will be scheduling a series of memoir writing workshops starting in the spring of 2022.

 

Gravedigger’s Daughter is available for order through meadowlark-books.square.site and may be ordered through any bookseller. Learn more at www.meadowlark-books.com.

 

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A Peek Inside "Gravedigger's Daughter"

 The first shipment of books is on the way! Order your copy today or plan to join us for our first in-person book launch in more than a year! 

Gravedigger's Daughter: 

Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town

by Cheryl Unruh

Saturday, November 13, 2021, 1:00pm

Lyon County History Center and Museum

711 Commercial, Emporia, Kansas

Presentation and Book Launch 

For our Wednesday excerpt, we share a few poems from Cheryl's new book. Enjoy!

Praise for:

With Gravedigger’s Daughter, Cheryl Unruh has created something so fresh and inviting--a memoir in lean vignettes. Each is moving on its own, and also part of a compelling portrait of a childhood in an isolated town with a dwindling population. Unruh’s details are too specific for sentimentalism, but places and people are observed with a loving gaze that also feels wise and honest. Her father, especially, emerges as both haunted and quietly heroic. What a beautiful book. 

—Laura Moriarty, author of The Chaperone

 

Cheryl Unruh is one of the great chroniclers of life under the Kansas sky, a travel guide into the hearts and minds of people minted on the prairie. A long-time columnist for the Emporia Gazette, Unruh’s “dad poems” in Gravedigger’s Daughter remind me of another Kansas journalist, Elfriede Fisher Rowe, who published micro-narratives about people and events in Lawrence. In her new collection, Unruh creates not only an archive of the relationship with her father, but through those remembrances paints the history of Pawnee Rock, her hometown, one four-paragraph brush stroke at a time.

—George Frazier, author of The Last Wild Places of Kansas: Journeys into Hidden Landscapes

Book Launch Invitation: Gravedigger's Daughter

 Please Join Us

Saturday, November 13, 2021, 1:00pm

Lyon County History Center and Museum

711 Commercial, Emporia, Kansas

Presentation and Book Launch by Cheryl Unruh

Fall through a portal in time with Cheryl Unruh’s vignettes. Wrapped in the comfort of childhood's small-town embrace, grow deeper in understanding of a gentle, working-class, artist-father. Breathe deeply and recall life's seasons: pedaling your universe on a bicycle, loitering with your friends at the local post office, contributing to the local economy with the purchase of that one, small padlock.

Gravedigger's Daughter is more than a story of the author and her father. It is a reminder of the relationships we all have, more than skin deep, an examination of the complexities of the people we love and care for. It is a love letter to the individuals who always exist at our very core.

Order your copy today!

Excerpt: The "Beginnings" issue of 105 Meadowlark Reader

 

April 2021

Dear Reader:

Here it is—the inaugural issue of 105 Meadowlark Reader! We are thrilled to have you along for the ride.  

When we began this new and exciting venture, Tracy and I set out to gather true Kansas stories and to highlight our many talented Kansas writers. Because our journal was going to seek contributions from Kansas writers, we wanted to publish stories that shared an authentic Kansas experience.

“Beginnings” seemed like an appropriate theme for this issue and between these covers you’ll find thirty-five stories written by Kansans and former Kansans. 

As you make your way through this journal, you’ll find a wide variety of writing styles and content: everything from the birth of calves to a study of William Stafford, from water skiing on a tiny lake to how to play two-man baseball. 

Over time, 105’s goal is to publish stories from across our rectangular map, stories with connections in each of the 105 counties. While the larger population centers will rush us with more submissions, we know that in each and every rural county there are countless writers with hands spreading ink across a page, heads bent over keyboards. We want to hear from all of you. 

105 is looking for a true diversity of beautiful Kansas voices. Please consider writing and submitting your own stories. We welcome storytellers of all levels of experience. We are looking for stories that capture an authentic experience written in your own unique voice.

The theme of our autumn issue is: Kansas Travel Stories. Visit our website for submission guidelines, www.105meadowlarkreader.com.

We want to help build and encourage a strong community of Kansas writers. Check out our directory of resources in the back. And please consider subscribing to 105 Meadowlark Reader. Be a part of this magnificent Kansas adventure. 

Tracy and I are excited to produce a journal that showcases Kansas writers and we are delighted to have you with us, dear reader. Thank you. 

                                                                                        Cheryl Unruh, Editor

Purchase your copy in the Meadowlark bookstore.

Julie Sellers is one of 35 authors in the first issue of 105 Meadowlark Reader.

Julie A. Sellers was raised on a family farm in the Flint Hills near the small town of Florence, Kansas, and she has always loved those unbounded expanses of tallgrass prairie. After living in several states and countries, Julie is happy to make her home in Atchison, Kansas, where she is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Benedictine College. Julie has published three academic books, and her creative prose and poetry has appeared in publications such as Cagibi, Eastern Iowa Review, Wanderlust and Kansas Time + Place. Julie was the Kansas Authors Club 2020 Prose Writer of the year. Her collection of poetry, Kindred Verse, is forthcoming from Blue Cedar Press in June 2021.

Also available at:

 

 

Excerpt: Walking on Water, poems by Cheryl Unruh

We had the honor of publishing Cheryl Unruh's first collection of poetry in 2017. What a treat! Today we share a reading of the title poem by Cheryl, and invite you to view a sample of Cheryl's book at ISSUU.

Award-winning essayist, Cheryl Unruh, grounds the reader in a study of land and sky, love and life, and death and curiosity in Walking on Water, her first book of poetry. Once an inland sea, this place called Kansas now offers a wide-open prairie, covered with grasses and grains which wave in the wind, mimicking that long-gone sea. The vacant plains and open skies of her native state provide a sense of freedom for Cheryl, and it is these elements, as well as the colorful textures of this land and its people, that she draws from for her writing.

Through glimpses of her childhood growing up in a tiny Kansas town, Cheryl explores finding her place in the world and examines how Midwesterners relate to family, to friends, and to their communities. Because one of her father’s jobs was as caretaker of the town’s cemetery, Cheryl spent part of her youth in the graveyard, becoming acquainted early with the concept of death. Poems in this collection reflect her varied perspectives of death, including a childhood perception that the afterlife took place underground.

The book isn’t all serious, however. Readers will laugh out loud through Cheryl’s To-Do List poetry. She employs her sense of humor, creating clashes of thought and mixing together modern culture and spirituality, imagination and song.

Fans of Cheryl’s two previous collections of vivid Kansas essays will delight in her poetry. New readers will be charmed. This collection leads the reader to discover the beauty in the simplest of landscapes, to revel in the always-changing seasons, and to seek magic and splendor in the everyday moments of life.

Praise for Walking on Water:

Walking on Water is a refreshing and original exploration of place: poems that speak from the earth and into the sky of what it means to live and create in the center of the continent. From the remnants of the inland ocean to this planet that “twists in the dark,” Cheryl Unruh expands our ability to see and hear what’s on the edge of our horizons as well as the seemingly simple moments that encapsulate living in “the prairie’s open hand.” She also sparks this clear-seeing with humor, such as in “Making a List,” a collection of to-do lists mixing the mythical and ordinary, psychological and geographical. Memory and the power of storytelling, what lies within and around us, and the simplicity of paying attention sing through these poems of home as both a journey into what makes us wild and an arrival into the essence of life.

~Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, 2009–13 Kansas Poet Laureate

and author of Chasing Weather (with photographer Stephen Locke)

Cheryl Unruh brings to her poems the same insider’s insight and open-eyed sense of wonder that made her essays about Kansas so delightful. “In a scrappy little town / wooden houses have been / left for dead . . .” we read, and we know she has ridden those silent, dusty, rural roads. The lines: “An airplane, / camouflaged by constellations” have us standing beside her, searching the singularly brilliant Milky Way that arches from horizon to horizon across the nighttime Kansas prairie. “I listen in the dark, / the rain filling a place / I didn’t know was empty,” she writes, and you find that Cheryl’s words work just that way for you.

~Roy Beckemeyer, author of Music I Once Could  Dance To

Cheryl’s new book of poems re-exhibits her keen eye for Kansas life and her heart for Kansas-land and its people, from its coyote “running for home like a kid / late for curfew” to its “cicadas (that) chant evening prayers.” The collection also exhibits her wit, revealed in to-do lists that include “Spend only dimes today . . . Restripe the zebras . . . Do not cry at elevator music . . . Blare Jimmy Buffett until the neighbors complain . . . Toss yesterday to the wind.” Such is the way of this collection, full of wit and wisdom, as strong as her prose, but with more vivid light, like a thin blue butane flame.

~Kevin Rabas, author of Songs for My Father

The hallmark of Cheryl Unruh’s prose has always been its lyricism. Admirers of her essays and columns—which is to say, anybody who has read them—will be delighted and not at all surprised to learn that she produces wise, witty, painterly poems as well.

~Eric McHenry, 2015–17 Kansas Poet Laureate

Wednesday excerpt, book giveaway, and a really good recommendation!

For this special Wednesday, we have an interview excerpt between two Meadowlark authors, book excerpts from Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg's new Meadowlark book, How Time Moves, as well as another special giveaway opportunity for a free copy of the book.

The Interview

The other day, I was reading the interview Cheryl Unruh did with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, and I was so taken by Cheryl's unique and valuable questions and Caryn's quick and confident answers that it felt important to share an excerpt of the interview with you:

"In a writing workshop many years ago, I latched onto one of your comments. You said that you yourself don’t get writer’s block, that if you get stuck on one project, you just move on to another project – that you have several works-in-progress at once. I can’t tell you how valuable that concept has been for me. Because of that, I tend to have 3-4 projects going. For any writers who feel blocked, do you have additional suggestions on how to get unblocked?

"Yup, I don’t think we need to embrace the notion of writer’s block, which is not to say that sometimes we can’t find the right way to finish or start something. But by re-interpreting that moment as something more like, “Well, I’m just not ready to do this at this moment, and I’ll come back to it,” then do something else, we can free ourselves from the numbing or torturous impact of being stuck. There’s a lot of unhealthy myths about the writing life, including and especially that the writer needs to be constantly tormented, and I reject those myths as much as possible.

"What to do if you’re not ready to write something, if the thing itself isn’t ripe for showing up on the page? Write something else, take a walk or nap, drink some very cold water or hot tea, watch a TED talk, play some loud fiddle music, open a book and begin reading, and in short order, take the pressure off yourself. That pressure can cause you pain and also, it will absolutely shut down the possibility of new growth coming through. I like to work on numerous projects at once too, and I just go where the energy is. Although I spend many years on each book, the books get done eventually, and it can add up to a lot of books."

We are proud of our Meadowlark authors and love when they get together to talk craft and philosophy! I highly encourage you to read the interview in full HERE.

The Poems!

An Interview with Marcia Lawrence, owner of Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore

To celebrate Independent Bookstore Day, Meadowlark intern, Jessica Jackson, took a moment with Marcia Lawrence of Ellen Plumb’s City Bookstore in Emporia.

JJ: What made you want to open Ellen Plumb's? What was your inspiration?

ML: I moved back to Emporia after an absence of nearly 40 years (I attended ESU in the 1970s). After a couple years, I was committed to staying and bought a house. I'd barely signed the papers on a mortgage when the announcement came that Town Crier (our former bookstore) was closing. Well, I can't live in a town without a bookstore! A group of community people met at my house for months, trying to find a way to bring a bookstore back to Emporia. Finally, I called a halt to the meetings, as business decisions like this cannot be made by committee. I'd been working closely with the Small Business Development Center at ESU on a business plan and financial projections--and this is not my first small business--so I truly understood the risks involved. After some deep reflection, I quit my job, invested all my personal savings, and opened Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore.

JJ: What makes Ellen Plumb's special?

ML: Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore is, by design and intent, a safe and comfortable place for book lovers of all kinds. The bookshop vision is to be community-oriented, to give back to the people of our town in promoting literacy and love of books. Of course, the other thing that sets Ellen Plumb's apart from most other indie bookstores is our Espresso Book Machine. We are thrilled that our machine has arrived in Emporia and is currently being refurbished by book-loving VekTek engineers. They will install the Espresso Book Machine at Ellen Plumb's in the coming weeks.

JJ: Ellen Plumb's has become a pivotal part of Emporia's community, not just the literary

Marcia Lawrence,
Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore
1122 Commercial St.
Emporia, Kansas

community, how do you feel about that?

ML: That's a very nice thing to hear! I grew up in a small Kansas town, and it took everybody to keep the community vital and thriving. That responsibility to cooperate, collaborate, and help the entire community thrive is practically part of my DNA.

JJ: Where do you see Ellen Plumb's in the future? Any plans?

ML: There's never a scarcity of dreams and plans for the bookshop! We are committed, this year, to growing and expanding genre selections, and hope to add about 25 percent more titles. We'll be adding to and refining some regular events. Naturally, there's a big push to roll out the first phase of the Espresso Book Machine program, with lots more to come in future years.

JJ: What about you?  What kind of books do you like to read? What is your reading life?

ML: These days, I spend many evenings reading ARCs (Advance Reading Copies). I work with our industry trade associations (American Booksellers Association, Midwest Independent Bookstore Association, IndieBound) to assess, critique, and promote new books--many by first-time authors. I always try to read the books written by authors who do book events at Ellen Plumb's. That's about once a week, so that's a lot of books in and of itself! Because of the imminent arrival of the Espresso Book Machine, I am revisiting some old favorites and a number of newer titles in the self-publishing, writing, and marketing/promotion genres. I particularly enjoy biography, history, and historical fiction. 

Meadowlark Author, Mike Graves, at Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore.

Meadowlark Author, Cheryl Unruh, at Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore.

A Publisher’s Diary – Celebrating Poetry Month in April

I don’t read poetry.

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a dozen times.

Beyond a collection of poems I wrote in high school, an early book-binding experiment that included glitter on the cover, I adopted the “I don’t read poetry” stance for more years than I would care to admit. Thankfully, I've gotten the opportunity to spend a lot of time with poets in the last couple of decades. I have found poetry workshops among my favorite gatherings of writers to attend, and I absolutely love going to readings, learning to hear the voice of a poet so well they continue reciting poetry to me, inside my head, as I turn the pages of their books.

Poet by poet, I fall in love with poetry.

Ronda Miller is the current president of the Kansas AuthorsClub, a life coach for people who have lost someone to homicide, and an advocate for special needs children. I first began reading/listening to Ronda’s poetry through KAC workshops and readings where she not only brought me to attention with her poetry (she sometimes writes on subjects I might once have been too shy/prudish to talk about), but Ronda encouraged me to exercise my voice, to tell my own truths through poetry, as well. Ronda’s two books of poetry have a special place on my bookshelf. MoonStain was the very first poetry book published by Meadowlark in 2015, and we were delighted to add WaterSigns in 2017.  I have learned so much through Ronda’s poetry. I have gained an intimacy with subjects I only knew peripherally (or perhaps simply would not admit I knew) and greater empathy for women’s issues and women, in general. Ronda has become one of my near-daily touchstones. If I am not reading her poetry, we might be exchanging notes on our shared interest in Kansas Authors Club, our common appreciation for fine desserts, or advice and life tidbits as they occur.

Kevin Rabas is the 2017-2019 Kansas Poet Laureate, and I always enjoy bragging that he was a Meadowlark author and poet first. Without Kevin in my life, there would be no Meadowlark. He was a co-conspirator on Green Bike, as well as author of the beautiful volume of poetry and short prose, Songs of My Father (Meadowlark 2016). Kevin’s enthusiasm for the arts and poetry is catching. If I am ever in need of a spark of creative confidence, a bit of time in Kevin’s presence will usually do it. There is ample opportunity to hear from Kevin directly as he tours Kansas finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary (a complete schedule can be found at the Kansas Humanities website) or you can almost always find him at First Fridays at Ellen Plumb’s City Bookstore in Emporia. Kevin will also be the keynote speaker at the Kansas Authors Club annual writing convention, which takes place in Salina this year. I am excited to add Kevin’s new book, Like Buddah-Calm Bird, to the Meadowlark poetry shelf in 2018.

Cheryl Unruh is my sister from another mother, as well as my first friend in what was once-upon-a-time my new life in Emporia. I fell in love with Cheryl via her writing on her website and her long-running Emporia Gazette column, “Flyover People,” which eventually became two amazing volumes of Kansas essays. I was delighted in 2017 to publish Cheryl’s first volume of poetry, Walking on Water, where she explores the themes of Kansas/Kansans/children of the prairie in poetry with the same attention to detail she gives her prose. Cheryl’s humor shines in her poetry, as well as her heart. So relatable, I find myself tacking words from Cheryl to my mirror and inside the covers of my personal journals.

Olive Sullivan is a poet I have had the pleasure of getting to know solely through her poetry. Her book, Wandering Bone, contains some of my favorite poems, which I am sharing as part of my personal celebration of poetry this month.

There are currently five books of poetry on the Meadowlark bookshelf, with three terrific new volumes planned for 2018, including collections by Izzy Wasserstein and Tyler Robert Sheldon.

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I decided to give a gift of poetry to any reader who asked. Meadowlark Books has created a Poetry Sampler that includes selections from all of our poetry books, including our 2018 poetry books! Sign up via the form below to get this sampler (PDF format) delivered to your email inbox. It’s nearly ready to go!

Tracy Million Simmons

Meadowlark Books

Click here to get a copy of The Meadowlark Books Poetry Sampler - 2018

Meadowlark Books Debuts Four New Books at Author Meet & Greet at Ellen Plumb’s City Bookstore

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12/10 update: The Emporia Gazette added an interview and did so much more with this! Thank you to Regina Murphy for this coverage. Read the Gazette article here.

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Emporia publisher, Meadowlark Books, will host an Author Meet and Greet at Ellen Plumb’s City Bookstore on Friday, December 8, 2017, from 5-7pm. Authors will read, visit with readers, and sign books for this come-and-go event. There will be snacks and drawings for giveaways.

The author lineup for the event includes Kansas Poet Laureate, Kevin Rabas, reading from his book of poetry, Songs for my Father; Ronda Miller, Kansas Authors Club state president in 2018 and author of MoonStain and WaterSigns, reading her latest poetry; and founder of Meadowlark, Tracy Million Simmons, reading from A Life in Progress, and Other Short Stories.

Michael D. Graves, 2016 Kansas Notable Book Award recipient, will be reading from the newly released, second-installment of his Pete Stone, Private Investigator series, Shadow of Death. The novel, set in 1930s Wichita, follows Stone, who wakes up in jail accused of killing a cop. Stone must prove his innocence before he’s abandoned by his clients, his friends, and one special lady.

Cheryl Unruh, former Gazette columnist and two-time Kansas Notable author, Flyover People (2011) and Waiting on the Sky (2015), will read from her poetry book, Walking on Water.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, three-time notable book award winner and 2009-2013 Kansas Poet Laureate, will read from her newest book, Everyday Magic: Field Notes on the Mundane and the Miraculous, which features the best of her blog of the same title, and highlights many topics such as travel and homecoming, beloveds and the art of loving, grief and resilience, arts and politics, and spirits and being a body.

Emporia State University student and fantasy writer, Hannah Jeffers-Huser, will be reading from What Lies Beyond, Book I of the Salacir Chronicles. Also featured at the event will be James Kenyon, a northwestern Kansas native who has published a collection of short memoirs, A Cow for College, recollections of growing up on the family farm, and Olive L. Sullivan’s book of poetry, Wandering Bone.

Meadowlark Books is an Emporia based publisher which got its start in 2014 with the publication of Green Bike, a group novel by Rabas, Graves, and Simmons. The publisher now has thirteen titles by poets and authors writing about and/or from Kansas, including the 2016 Kansas Notable Book, To Leave a Shadow by Michael D. Graves. The publisher also won the 2016 “It Looks Like A Million” book design award by the Kansas Authors Club, with the titles To Leave a Shadow and MoonStain. More about Meadowlark Books can be found at meadowlark-books.com. All Meadowlark titles are for sale on the publisher’s website, at Ellen Plumb’s City Bookstore at 1122 Commercial, Emporia, KS, and can be ordered through any online or independent bookstore.

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A Note From Meadowlark Books, April 2017

A Note From Meadowlark Books April 2017 I have celebrated April--aka National Poetry Month--in the best way I can imagine. Meadowlark Books has published Walking on Water, poems by Cheryl Unruh, and we had a great release party here in Emporia! Walking on Water is the first of five books already under contract to publish in 2017. This year, I look forward to sharing with you: a memoir on growing up in 1950s Kansas by James Kenyon, a fantasy novel by Hannah Jeffers-Huser, another wonderful collection of poetry by Ronda Miller, and a collection of essays--Everyday Magic--by Caryn Mirriam Goldberg I am honored and excited to be working with these authors on so many lovely book projects! Thank you for your support! Tracy Million Simmons Upcoming Engagements: Copies of Walking on Water, and all Meadowlark titles, are available for purchase at Meadowlark Books, and online at any bookstore. We encourage you to order from your nearest independent bookseller! Friday, May 5, starting at 7pm, First Friday at Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore (1101 Commercial, Emporia) with hosts, Kevin Rabas and Lisa Moritz Saturday, May 6, 11am-noon, Emporia Public Library - workshop by Tracy Million Simmons on book marketing. So you’ve written a book. Now what? How do you get your work into the hands of readers? Tracy Million Simmons of Meadowlark Books will share practical advice on book marketing. From developing an author platform to social media, tips for author websites, book reviews, and book events, this workshop will cover the basics of selling books for self-published (or small press published) authors. Sunday, May 7, Liberty Hall in Lawrence, 3pm - Ronda Miller is in the cast of Listen to Your Mother. Saturday, May 13, 1-2pm - Cheryl Unruh and Leon Unruh Reading and book signing at Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore (1101 Commercial, Emporia) Thursday, June 1, The Raven Bookstore (Lawrence), 7pm - Mike Graves, To Leave a Shadow, reading with Cathy Callen. Saturday, June 17, 1-2pm, The Feast, City Arts (334 N. Mead, Wichita, KS) - Kevin Rabas will be presenting. Saturday, June 17, 7-8pm, Aimee's Coffee House (1025 Mass., Lawrence) Kevin Rabas performing with The Petrogyphs. Saturday, June 24 - Emporia Public Library Authors Fair - Mike Graves will be a featured author! A calendar of these events and others (Kansas Authors Club related) can be found on the Meadowlark website.

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Walking on Water, poems by Cheryl Unruh Walking on Water, poems by Cheryl Unruh Published by: Meadowlark Books ISBN: 978-1544632490 Emporia, KS Award-winning essayist, Cheryl Unruh, grounds the reader in a study of land and sky, love and life, and death and curiosity in Walking on Water, her first book of poetry. Once an inland sea, this place called Kansas now offers a wide-open prairie, covered with grasses and grains which wave in the wind, mimicking that long-gone sea. The vacant plains and open skies of her native state provide a sense of freedom for Cheryl, and it is these elements, as well as the colorful textures of this land and its people, that she draws from for her writing. Through glimpses of her childhood growing up in a tiny Kansas town, Cheryl explores finding her place in the world and examines how Midwesterners relate to family, to friends, and to their communities. Because one of her father’s jobs was as caretaker of the town’s cemetery, Cheryl spent part of her youth in the graveyard, becoming acquainted early with the concept of death. Poems in this collection reflect her varied perspectives of death, including a childhood perception that the afterlife took place underground. The book isn’t all serious, however. Readers will laugh out loud through Cheryl’s To-Do List poetry. She employs her sense of humor, creating clashes of thought and mixing together modern culture and spirituality, imagination and song. Fans of Cheryl’s two previous collections of vivid Kansas essays will delight in her poetry. New readers will be charmed. This collection leads the reader to discover the beauty in the simplest of landscapes, to revel in the always-changing seasons, and to seek magic and splendor in the everyday moments of life. Praise for Walking on Water: Walking on Water is a refreshing and original exploration of place: poems that speak from the earth and into the sky of what it means to live and create in the center of the continent. From the remnants of the inland ocean to this planet that “twists in the dark,” Cheryl Unruh expands our ability to see and hear what’s on the edge of our horizons as well as the seemingly simple moments that encapsulate living in “the prairie’s open hand.” She also sparks this clear-seeing with humor, such as in “Making a List,” a collection of to-do lists mixing the mythical and ordinary, psychological and geographical. Memory and the power of storytelling, what lies within and around us, and the simplicity of paying attention sing through these poems of home as both a journey into what makes us wild and an arrival into the essence of life. ~Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, 2009–13 Kansas Poet Laureate and author of Chasing Weather (with photographer Stephen Locke) Cheryl Unruh brings to her poems the same insider’s insight and open-eyed sense of wonder that made her essays about Kansas so delightful. “In a scrappy little town / wooden houses have been / left for dead . . .” we read, and we know she has ridden those silent, dusty, rural roads. The lines: “An airplane, / camouflaged by constellations” have us standing beside her, searching the singularly brilliant Milky Way that arches from horizon to horizon across the nighttime Kansas prairie. “I listen in the dark, / the rain filling a place / I didn’t know was empty,” she writes, and you find that Cheryl’s words work just that way for you. ~Roy Beckemeyer, author of Music I Once Could  Dance To Cheryl’s new book of poems re-exhibits her keen eye for Kansas life and her heart for Kansas-land and its people, from its coyote “running for home like a kid / late for curfew” to its “cicadas (that) chant evening prayers.” The collection also exhibits her wit, revealed in to-do lists that include “Spend only dimes today . . . Restripe the zebras . . . Do not cry at elevator music . . . Blare Jimmy Buffett until the neighbors complain . . . Toss yesterday to the wind.” Such is the way of this collection, full of wit and wisdom, as strong as her prose, but with more vivid light, like a thin blue butane flame. ~Kevin Rabas, author of Songs for My Father The hallmark of Cheryl Unruh’s prose has always been its lyricism. Admirers of her essays and columns—which is to say, anybody who has read them—will be delighted and not at all surprised to learn that she produces wise, witty, painterly poems as well. ~Eric McHenry, 2015–17 Kansas Poet Laureate Congratulations to a Meadowlark Author! Kansas Names Kevin Rabas 2017-2019 Poet Laureate  The Kansas Humanities Council has named Kevin Rabas, chair of Emporia State’s Department of English, Modern Languages and Journalism, the Poet Laureate of KansasTM, 2017-2019. To be named state poet laureate is one of Kansas’s highest literary honors. The poet laureate engages in a range of activities to foster literary citizenship and engagement in the state. The duties include giving talks and readings across Kansas to promote poetry and the arts and humanities. Rabas’ new role begins today and there will be a local ceremony in Emporia in early June. “We are so fortunate to live in a state of talented poets and writers,” said Julie Mulvihill, executive director of the Kansas Humanities Council. “Kevin brings a deep understanding of poetry and a joyfulness in sharing it with others. I know Kevin is eager to get out on the road, and Kansans will welcome him around the state.” Rabas is an active poet, playwright, jazz musician, and professor of English. He is author of seven books of poetry, including “Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano¸” which was named a Kansas Notable Book in 2010. He is also author of two books of prose and several short plays. His writing has earned numerous awards and recognitions, including the Nelson Poetry Book Award, the Kansas Notable Book Award, the Langston Hughes Poetry Award, the Victor Contoski Poetry Award and the Jerome Johanning Playwriting Award. At ESU, Rabas’ accomplishments have been recognized with the President’s Award for Research and Creativity (2012), and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Award for Excellence in Scholarship (2010). Rabas is a professor of English who has taught poetry, playwriting, literary publishing and contemporary literature at ESU since 2005. He has served as co-director of the ESU Creative Writing program since 2006. On campus, he has served in such roles as president of the faculty and assistant director of the University Honors Program. An active presenter in the state and region, his new presentation schedule as poet laureate, will include a series called “Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary.” In approximately one talk per month for the Kansas Humanities Council, he will present at a range of venues. Through poetry, Rabas will explore the beauty and value in everything around us. “Poetry reminds us that every little bit of our lives is meaningful,” Rabas said. “Part of the poet’s job is to remind us to observe and cherish the world and our lives in it.” Support for the Poet Laureate of Kansas™ has been provided by the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Charitable Trust, Overland Park, and KHC’s Friends of the Humanities. To learn more about the Poet Laureate of KansasTM program or to request a presentation with Rabas, go to http://kansashumanities.org/programs/poet-laureate-of-kansas/ or contact Leslie Von Holten, KHC director of programs, at leslie@kansashumanities.org or 785-357-0359. About the Kansas Humanities Council The Kansas Humanities Council is a nonprofit organization that supports community-based cultural programs and encourages Kansans to engage in the civic and cultural life of their communities. Writing Friends and Friendly Writers...  A few highlights from my personal calendar. I first met Sue Claridge when she played lovely tunes on her flute for the Emporia Farmers Market. She is a member of the Emporia Writers group. I have found her dedication to her writing career an inspiration, and I am often moved to laughter by her wisdom and wit. Visit Sue's website: Resonate. Kansas Books on My To-Read List: Kalaska: Poetry from the Chautauqua Hills , by Kelly W. Johnston (Blue Cedar Press) -- Kelly is a new Kansas Authors Club board member and a recently announced poetry winner in the 2017 Kansas Voices contest. (Congratulations, Kelly!) Hush Girl: It's Only a Dream, by Gloria Zachgo While Nicki Reed is desperate to find the answers to her past, someone is desperate for her to never remember. Shortly after her father died, Nicki’s nightmares started. They were soon followed by panic attacks. Suspecting her haunting dreams were related to her childhood, Nicki sought professional help, but Nicki was unable to verbalize any memories she had as a child. Bad things happened when she told secrets. When her therapist suggested she write her memories, Nicki started remembering things she had pushed far into the recesses of her mind. She started to doubt her own sanity, and when she began to see a strange woman stalking her, she couldn’t be sure if that woman was real or imagined. Yet, Nicki couldn’t tell anyone, until—her own family’s welfare was threatened. Recently Read and Recommended: Words in Rows Poetry and Prose, by Cathy Callen Words in Rows, Poetry and Prose is an autobiography in "short takes," a collection of poems and short prose written over the course of the author's lifetime, and presented chronologically from the earliest to the latest. Poetry written as a VISTA volunteer in Alaska, an accounting of her presence during the University of Texas tower massacre, reflections written about early morning walks with her dog and raising a challenging child, and thoughts about the passage of time are included, among others. Many of the pieces are humorous; several are accompanied by delightful illustrations provided by five artists.