Roy J. Beckemeyer is a retired aeronautical engineer / Boeing Company executive. In his post-professional life, he has been a  scientific journal editor, a researcher who has studied extant dragonflies and Paleozoic fossil insects. He has described and named from fossils more than twenty new species of Paleozoic insects. He is also a nature photographer, writer, award-winning poet, and poetry and literary reviewer and editor and has done book layout and design. His poems have appeared over half a dozen anthologies and many print and online journals. His debut poetry collection, Music I Once Could Dance To (2014, Coal City Press) was a 2015 Kansas Notable Book. He recently co-edited Kansas Time+Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry (2017, Little Balkans Press) with Kansas Poet Laureate Emerita Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. Amanuensis Angel (Spartan Press, 2018) is a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry inspired by abstract and impressionist artists’ depictions of angels. His full-length poetry collection, Stage Whispers (2018, Meadowlark Books), won the 2019 Kansas Authors Club Nelson Poetry Book Award. Later in 2019, his fourth book of poetry, Mouth Brimming Over was published by Blue Cedar Press. His most recent book, The Currency of His Light (Turning Plow Press, 2023) made its debut at the 2023 Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in Ada, Oklahoma.

Beckemeyer’s work has been nominated for Pushcart (2015, 2020, and 2024) and Best of the Net (2018, 2023) awards and was selected for Best Small Fiction 2019. He won the Jim Stone Memorial Poetry Award in 2013 and 2014,  the 2014 Beecher’s Magazine Poetry Award, the 2016 Kansas Voices Award,  and was Kansas Authors Club Poet of the Year in 2013 and 2015-2019.

Roy Beckemeyer was on the editorial board of River City Poetry and was a co-editor of Konza Journal. He taught eight-week Poetry Workshops for senior citizens two or three times a year from 2011 through 2019 at LifeVentures. He has served as State President of the Kansas Authors Club (2016-2017) and has held numerous positions at the district level.

Beckemeyer began writing poems to his high school sweetheart, Pat, now his wife of more than 60 years. They have lived in Kansas for over 50 of those years, and have traveled widely, from Antarctica to Kamchatka, Belize to Vanuatu. He blogs at https://phanaerozoic.blog/.

LINKS

• Link to the nomination of Roy’s poem “The Color of Blessings” by Clare MacQueen, editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly for the 46th Annual Pushcart Anthology.
• Link to Episode 505 of the KPTS Channel 8 Wichita Public Television show, Positively Kansas, in which Roy Beckemeyer is interviewed by Sierra Scott and reads two short poems on the last segment of the half-hour show, beginning at 20:16.
• Link to Roy’s PODCAST, Music I Once Could Dance To – Poems.
• Link to Kansas Author/Poet Cheryl Unruh’s A Rumor of Coyotes Blog feature, “Written in Kansas: Interviews with Kansas Writers,” the March 19, 2019 interview of which features yours truly, Roy Beckemeyer. Thanks to Cheryl for the interesting questions.
• Link to Meadowlark Books Publisher/Author/Entrepreneur Tracy Million Simmons’ interview with Roy Beckemeyer, January 30, 2019. [Thanks, Tracy, for the great interview.]
• Link to Roy J. Beckemeyer’s entry at the Map of Kansas Literature webpage.
• Link to Miranda Ericsson’s Interview with Roy Beckemeyer at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library’s webpage. [Thanks, Miranda!]
• Link to distinguished journalist and author Roy Wenzl’s blog entry [on our meeting one fine October morning]. “The Art of Letting Go” (Oct. 3, 2017).
• Link to Emporia Gazette 6/21/2017 article, “Plan for Poetry Sunday Afternoon,” about his reading at the William Allen White House Poetry on the Porch Series.
• Link to Marci Epstein’s “Talk with ME” interview with Roy Beckemeyer on Lawrence Hits, 10/07/2016.
• Link to List of Roy J. Beckemeyer’s Scientific and Technical Publications, including several which address aspects of the history of science.
• Roy J. Beckemeyer’s Author’s Page on Amazon.
• Roy Beckemeyer reading “Sweet, Your Heart,” to improvised musical accompaniment by Bill Glenn (percussion) and Susan Mayo (cello), at Epistrophy: An afternoon of poetry and improvised music, Wichita Advanced Learning Library, OCt. 21, 2018.

RECOGNITIONS

• • First Place, Kansas Authors Club 2019 Author’s Website Recognition Award.
  • Kansas Authors Club Nelson Poetry Book Award 2019.
  • Best Small Fictions 2019.
  • Best of the Net Nominee, 2018, 2023.
  • Best Spiritual Literature Nominee, 2023.
  • Kansas Voices Poetry Award, 2016.
  • Kansas Authors Club Achievement in Writing Award, 2016.
  • Kansas Notable Book Award, 2015.
  • Pushcart Nominee, 2015, 2020, 2024.
  • Beecher’s Magazine Poetry Contest Winner: His poem, “tree shadows,” was selected as first-place winner in the Spring 2014 Beecher’s Magazine Poetry Contest by judge Frank X. Walker.
  • Jim Stone Memorial Poetry Award ($150) 1st Place, 2013 and 2014.
  • Kansas Authors Club Poet of the Year, 2013 and 2015-2019.