This was one spectacular festival…

The annual Kentucky Book Festival in 2018 was held at the Kentucky Horse Park, inside the Alltech Arena. This is the first year they changed the title and structure. It’s been known as the book fair and occurred on one day, typically a Saturday. This year, it changed to a book festival with activities scheduled throughout the week; literary luncheons, dinners, and cocktails with authors, books and brews trivia, and outreach to rural public schools. The festival concluded at the Kentucky Horse Park with one gigantic room full of authors and their books. The authors are more than willing to talk about their books, sign them, and take pictures. The location has many other rooms available for author talks. The festival is hosted by the Kentucky Humanities Council and the books are purchased through the independent bookseller, Joseph-Beth. It’s pretty cool to be able to see the arena where horses are shown. While there aren’t any other events taking place at the same time as the book festival, you can grab some food from the concession stand, sit in the arena, and watch people practicing with their horses. It’s a huge setting and ideal for a book festival.

Fiction Tells The Whole Truth

The book festival schedule was filled with author panels and lots of authors I wanted to meet. The day started bright and early (for a Saturday morning) at 10:00 am with an author panel of Kristina McMorris, Elaine Neil Orr, and Hannah Pittard. Each woman talked about their book and shared writing experiences. Kristina McMorris talked about her latest book Sold on a Monday and shared the photo that inspired her historical fiction novel. Prior to his panel, I was unfamiliar with Kristina. I really enjoyed listening to Kristina and was immediately enamored by her. After the panel, I bought Sold on a Monday and The Edge of Lost as it’s set on Alcatraz. Kristina signed her books for me too. Elaine Neil Orr was also an author new to me. We had a cool connection as she lives in Raleigh, North Carolina and my husband and I used to live there. I was intrigued by her contribution to the panel and picked up her book Swimming Between Worlds. Hannah Pittard is the author that lured me to this author panel. I read her book Listen to Me and absolutely loved it! Hannah is an English professor at the University of Kentucky. She was on the panel to promote her book Visible Empire. I snatched that one up and The Fates Will Find Their Way as she told me it’s her favorite book she’s written.

The People You Know: Rural Literature Now

The next author panel was awesome! David Joy, Crystal Wilkinson, and Jane Hertenstein each write about Appalachia and engaged in interesting conversations about their writing and one book in particular they each despised. There was one book, by an author not present, that received popularity; however, it’s highly offensive to those who live and write about Appalachia. David Joy is a fabulous writer and the reason I attended this author panel. I’ve read all of his work so I was super excited to listen to him talk about his newest book The Line That Held Us. After the panel, I met with David and told him I had recently visited the independent bookstore, The Poisoned Pen, in Scottsdale, Arizona and saw his picture hanging on the wall. Therefore, he signed my book with a special note.

Silas House in conversation with Kayla Rae Whitaker

I will gladly take advantage of any opportunity I get to see Silas House speak. He was promoting his most recent book, Southernmost. I already have a copy of it, but I found one book I don’t have…Recruiters. It’s a short story initially published in the Anthology of Appalachian Writing, Vol. 2. It’s a beautiful illustrated edition offered by Kentucky’s Artisan Printer. Kayla Rae Whitaker is another author new to me. I really enjoyed listening to her so of course I was drawn to purchase her book The Animators. Kayla Rae is a Kentucky native, currently living in New York City.

More Authors, More Books

I met Tiffany Reisz at last year’s book fair and loved her book The Night Mark. This year I purchased The Bourbon Thief and The Lucky Ones. Tiffany is a local Lexington author who is married to author Andrew Shaffer. Ann Gabhart lives in a small town outside Lexington and writes cozy mysteries and Christian fiction novels. I stick with her cozy mystery series titled Hidden Springs Mystery. This year I bought Murder is no Accident. While browsing the main author floor, I met Dana Ridenour, a retired FBI agent. She was really interesting; I enjoyed talking with her about how she went from FBI agent to writer. I purchased the first two books in her series Behind the Mask and Beyond the Cabin. While talking with Dana, the author seated next to her, Bill Looney, noticed my husband’s Edgar Allan Poe tattoos. Bill easily talked us into buying his book, The Vacant Tomb, as it’s a murder mystery with Mr. Poe in the plot. Robin Yocum is an author from Ohio that I haven’t read either. I was upfront with that fact and asked him to recommend a book of his; he suggested I read The Essay. While browsing the author tables, I encountered David Meyers and Elise Meyers, father and daughter writers. They are from Ohio and write about prisons. I’m from Ohio and have always been intrigued about prisons, so adding two of their books, Central Ohio’s Historic Prisons and Inside the Ohio Penitentiary, was an easy sell. David Bell is a Kentucky author and English professor at Western Kentucky University. I enjoy his thriller novels so I picked up his latest book, Somebody’s Daughter.

This has been quite the year for meeting so many great authors! I spent time researching the book festival schedule in advance and identified several authors I wanted to get signed books from, but one thing led to another and I ended up with a huge stack of books!! It was such a thrilling experience to be exposed to so many authors I wasn’t aware of. This was definitely one special book festival.

As a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, I earn from qualifying purchases linked back to Amazon. Every penny earned allows me to blog about books and keeps this site running.