Four new titles by WSU English professors featured during Writing Now, Reading Now

Four new titles by WSU English professors featured during Writing Now, Reading Now Four new titles by WSU English professors featured during Writing Now, Reading Now Peyton Eck Four professors from the English department made up the Writing Now, Reading Now panel Tuesday at the Ulrich Museum of Art. The panel was guided by KMUW’s Beth Golay. Peyton Eck, Multimedia Reporter • October 10, 2026 The Polk/Wilson Gallery of the Ulrich Museum of Art currently homes an incredible number of stories. Artwork created decades apart, countries apart, hangs together in a gallery-wide collage that offers visitors a choice of dialogue to engage with. This Tuesday, four more pieces were invited into the space, this time as writing. The Writing Now, Reading Now series is an ongoing collaboration between the Ulrich and Wichita State’s English department; it aims to welcome literary enthusiasts to enter conversation with professional writers.  For the fall semester, the series featured four recently published works from five English professors here at WSU — two of the professors having collaborated on one of the projects. Jason Allen, Rebeccah Bechtold, Francis Connor and Adam Scheffler sat on a panel moderated by KMUW’s Beth Golay. Through the talk, they tackled topics such as knowing when an idea grows from an article to a book, experiences in publishing and compared writing methodologies.  Golay began the discussion of “where, when and how” each writer approached their craft with a nod to an earlier response. Jason Allen speaks at the Writing Now, Reading Now panel at the Ulrich. Allen is a creative writing professor. (Peyton Eck) “And we know Dr. Allen spends 24 hours in his pajamas doing this,” she said. Author of “Boys Without Fathers: A Memoir,” Allen — in this talk and a previous reading he had done at Watermark Books — has characterized his way of getting ready to write similarly to how one describes the dusk or the dawn, joking about writing in his pajamas or at the wee hours of the day when the mood strikes. It’s not an unshared trait, with Connor — the co-author of Darren DeFrain in their book “No Choice But Action: The Kansas Postpunk Revolution” — adding in his own anecdote of timeliness. “When the muse strikes, she strikes, and I’m a big believer in writing in verse,” he said. “You may have a couple of days where you don’t have anything going, but then on Saturday all of the sudden you’ll have 2,000 words down and it will be fantastic.” Being passed the mic, Scheffler — author of “So This Is What It Feels Like: Empathy in the Poetry of James Wright” — offered his endorsement for shower thoughts. “There’s a sense of you’re away from your phone, your mind can be clear and you can be open to new ideas,” Scheffler said. He mentioned later, when interviewed, that this mindset is pretty key to his method. “The more online we become, the more we’re addicted to our device, the more detached we are from the physical realities of the world around us, the more poetry can be something that helps return us to that,” Scheffler said. Author of “The Sonic South: Nineteenth-Century Plantation Literature,” Bechtold shared some of the difficulties facing writers who are parents — not everyone’s free time is your free time. In her response, she emphasized discipline in her writing. “This is our writing day, you are going to write! And I’m not meaning a paragraph, I’m meaning a sentence, but it’s the time you are dedicated to it,” Bechtold said. Watermark Books staff were present at the panel with book copies, allowing guests to have their book signed in person. While each of the books has different release celebrations, each is available at the bookstore. Francis Connor grins while speaking at the Writing Now, Reading Now panel Tuesday. Connor is the chair of the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. (Peyton Eck) 0 Like This Story Share on Facebook Share on X Share on Reddit Print this Story Leave a Comment More to Discover More in Arts and Culture The man behind Shocker Sports Grill and Lanes’ monthly specials REVIEW: October's pizza of the month is nothing special More in Showcase Shocker catcher ends Fall World Series with dramatic home run, earns his team big reward Big day for middle of the order leads softball to another win About the Contributor Peyton Eck, Multimedia Reporter Peyton Eck is a reporter and photographer for The Sunflower. They are a junior studying communication with a minor in text technologies and plan to pursue a career in publishing. Eck uses they/them pronouns.