Writing Now, Reading Now celebrates four books by five Wichita State University English Department authors published this year. Hosted by KMUW’s Beth Golay, the evening will feature readings, conversation, and insights into the writers’ creative journeys. Watermark Books will be on-site with books available for purchase and signing. Join us in celebrating the vibrant literary voices of the WSU community.
More info:
Your name: Fran Connor [co-author with Darren DeFrain]
Title of your book: No Choice But Action: The Kansas Postpunk Explosion
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
150-word bio: Fran is Associate Professor and chair in the English Department at Wichita State University. His scholarship is interested in the materiality of text technologies – such as books, manuscripts, cassettes, or zines – and the impact these forms have on the cultures that produce them. He is an Associate Editor for The New Oxford Shakespeare and an editor for The Oxford Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe.
Book title: Boys Without Fathers
Publisher: Quiet Storm (I copied Danielle Ramirez from Quiet Storm here)
Jason Allen writes fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. For his novel, The East End, National Book Award finalist Bonnie Jo Campbell provided the cover blurb: “Every page is filled with wise insights about social class and the human heart.” Jason has since been nominated for an Edgar Award and the Georgia Author of the Year Award, and his memoir, Boys Without Fathers, will be released in September of 2026. His poetry collection, A Meditation on Fire, is now with Black Lawrence Press, and he has published essays with Potomac Review, Salon, Literary Hub, and The Strand Magazine. Jason teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Wichita State University and lives in Kansas with his sweet rescue dog, Luna.
So This Is What It Feels Like: Empathy in the Poetry of James Wright
Louisiana State University Press
Bio: Adam Scheffler is the author of two books of poetry—A Dog's Life—which won the 2016 Jacar Press Book Contest, and Heartworm—which won the 2021 Moon City Press Prize. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Yale Review, Poem-a-Day, Verse Daily, Rattle, Narrative, and many other literary journals. He is also the author of a book of literary criticism, So This Is What It Feels Like: Empathy in the Poetry of James Wright (LSU Press, 2026). Adam grew up in California, received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and his PhD in English from Harvard. He is an Assistant Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing in the English Department at Wichita State University.
4.Rebeccah Bechtold
Title of your book-The Sonic South: Nineteenth-Century Plantation Literature
Publisher-University of Pennsylvania Press
Rebeccah Bechtold is an Associate Professor of English at Wichita State University. Her research analyzes how eighteenth, and nineteenth century American authors used sound to negotiate the social tensions impacting early American culture. Her work has appeared in Southern Quarterly, ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, J19: The Journal of Nineteenth Century Americanists, and the New England Quarterly, among other academic journals. Her monograph, The Sonic South: Nineteenth-Century Plantation Literature, examines the influence of white listening practices on nineteenth century literary representations of the plantation South.
5.Darren DeFrain:
Darren DeFrain is the author of numerous short stories, essays, and screenplays, as well as the story collection Inside & Out (MSR Press) and the cult novel The Salt Palace (New Issues Press). Both books are available online through Dzanc Books. He is a graduate of the University of Utah (B.A. in English, B.S. in Psychology, minor in Italian), Kansas State University (M.A.), Texas State University’s M.F.A. program and Western Michigan University, where he received his Ph.D. in creative writing in 2000. He lives in Wichita, Kansas with his wife Melinda and is the Director of the Writing Program at Wichita State University. He’s currently completing a collection of essays, A Moveable Bar-B-Q; and at work, with Fran Connor, on a book about punk.
Check out Dr DeFrain's website here!
Contact Dr. DeFrain at darren.defrain@wichita.edu.
