2025 AUTHOR LINEUP
Meet the incredible lineup of authors joining us at the Kentucky Book Festival!
FICTION
Sylvia Ahrens (writing as Allison Thorpe)
Out on a Limb
Crystal Caudill
Written in Secret
Christina Dotson
Love You To Death
Kristen Gentry
Mama Said
Silas House
Dead Man Blues
Bob Johnson
The Continental Divide
Sarah Landenwich
The Fire Concerto
Madge Maril
Slipstream
John Winn Miller
Rescue Run: Capt. Jake Rogers' Daring Return to Occupied Europe
Cynthia Reeves
The Last Whaler
Benjamin Rue Silliman
Exiting the Bluegrass Turnpike
Gerald Toner
Christmas in Our Time
B. Elizabeth Beck
Swan Songs
Matt Goldman
The Murder Show
Christopher J. Helvey
Revolution
Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst
Toni Ann Johnson
Light Skin Gone to Waste
Dwain W. Lee
Plausible Deception
Lee Martin
The Evening Shades
Elizabeth Bass Parman
Bees in June
Mark Rigney
Vinyl Wonderland
Allegra Solomon
There's Nothing Left for You Here
Nathan Vanderford & Holly Burke
Cancer in Appalachia: A Collection of Youth-Told Stories Volume 2
Lawrence Weill
The Metaphysics Shoppe of Wylers Ford
Wes Browne
They All Fall the Same
Billy Parks Burton
Turn a Blind Eye
Susan Coventry
Till Taught by Pain
Ann H. Gabhart
The Pursuit of Elena Bradford
Julie Hensley
Five Oaks
Wendy Jett
Woman
Chris McClain Johnson
Three Guesses
James Markert
Spider to the Fly
T.J. Martinson
Her New Eyes
Steven Penn
Shoes to Kill
Julia Seales
A Terribly Nasty Business
Erin Cecilia Thomas
I Watched You from the Ocean Floor
TJ West
Country Road Romance
NONFICTION
Martha A. Barnette
Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland
Jan Bradenburg
The Modern Mountain Cookbook: A Plant-Based Celebration of Appalachia
David Chaffetz
Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: the Horse and the Rise of Empires
Deedee Cummings
How To Dream
Elizabeth DeWolfe
Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy
Gerald Fischer
Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Kentucky Volume II Legacy of the Irregulars
Jacqueline Jane Hamilton
A Pencil Grows in Kentucky
Janet Holloway
Pathlights
Sonya Lea
American Bloodlines: Reckoning with Lynch Culture
Barry Mazor
The Everly Brothers Story: Blood Harmony
Marie Mitchell and Mason Smith
Paranormal Kentucky: An Uncommon Wealth of Close Encounters with Aliens, Ghosts, and Cryptids
Nancy O'Malley
Kentucky Frontier to Commonwealth: Historical Archaeology at Daniel Boone's and Hugh McGary's Stations
Gretchen Rubin
Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives
Mandi Sheffel
The Nature of Pain: Roots, Recovery, and Redemption amid the Opioid Crisis
Bob Willcutt
Gratz Park The Heart of Historic Lexington
Fiona Young Brown
Secret Lexington: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure
Jennifer Brian
Classic Cocktail Revival
Angela Correll
Village Life: Discover Tuscan-Inspired Hospitality and Intentional Living
Albert DeGiacomo
Awakening To Light. Three Plays
Elias Dorrin Eells
Cocktails and Consoles 75 Video Game-Inspired Drinks to Level Up Your Game Night
Julia Flint
We Were Promised: How an Appalachian Grandmother Fought a Corporate Giant
Denis Fleming Jr.
Thomas Jefferson and the Kentucky Constitution
Bob Hill
Out Here
Martha S. Jones
The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir
Johnisha Levi
Number's Up: Cracking the Code of an American Family
Eliza McGraw
Astride: Horses, Women, and a Partnership That Shaped America
Christopher Newman
Marion: The Marion Miley Story, 1914-1941
Sharon Roggenkamp
The Life & Times of Hammerin' Hank Ward: The Kentucky Park & Highway Commissioner Who Chased Riverfront Loan Sharks, Tangled with Arsonists in the Parks, and Banished Run Down Dump Trucks.
Davis Shoulders
Queer Communion: Religion in Appalachia
James Wells
Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son's Odyssey to Find the Father he Never Knew
Marvin Bartlett
Spirit of the Bluegrass
Bryan S. Bush
Samuel One-Armed Berry: Shaker, Teacher, Ruthless Civil War Guerilla
Tony Crunk
Hopkinsville
Louis S. DeLuca
Old-Time Kentucky Farmsteading Ways and Means From the Journals of Herbert Lee Clark
Cheryl L. Eriksen
Greyhound: The Remarkable Story of the Legendary Racehorse Who Inspired a Nation
Laura Gaddis
Mosaic
Lisa Hoffman
STEM SMART Parenting: A Practical Guide for Nurturing Innovative Thinkers
Brigid Kaelin
Lakeside
George Ella Lyon
Don’t You Remember? (Revised & Updated)
Keven McQueen
The Judge Mulligan Poisoning and Other Historic Lexington Crimes
James C. Nicholson
Racing's Return from the Brink: The Incredible Comeback of Old Rosebud and American Horse Racing
Susan Reigler
Kentucky Bourbon
Shaunna Scott
Toward Just Transitions: Visions for Regenerative Communities in Appalachia
Belinda Smith-Sullivan
Cocktails Southern Style
Jessica Whitehead
Driftwood: The Life of Harlan Hubbard
POETRY
Joseph Anthony
Playing Fair
Tony Crunk
Cosmogony: Night & Time
Wesley Houp
Strung out along the Endless Branch
Libby Falk Jones
Enchanting the Ordinary: Poems & Photographs
Alessandra Lynch
Wish Ave
Pat Owen
The Crossroad
Amy Richardson
Out of Places
Roberta Schultz
Deep Ends
Alfonso Zapata
To Pay for Our Next Breath: Poems
David B. Cazden
New Stars And Constellations (Bainbridge Island Press, 2024).
upfromsumdirt
The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife: Poems
Silas House
All These Ghosts
Daniel Lassell
Frame Inside a Frame
John W. McCauley
Kentucky is My Home: A Journey Into the Life of Jesse Hilton Stuart
Shauna Morgan
Ground Provisions
Jeremy Paden
how to recognize god's chosen
Artress White
A Black Doe in the Anthropocene: Poems
John Compton
my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store
Kathleen Driskell
Goat-Footed Gods
Denton Loving
Feller
Christopher McCurry
The Gospel of God Boy
Kevin Nance
Smoke
Marianne Peel
Untamed Arabesque
Carine Topal
Dear Blood,
Cecilia G. Woloch
Labor: The Testimony of Ted Gall
YOUNG ADULT
Kassidy Caroline
The Shadows We Hide
Katherine Elizabeth Hale-Stringfield
The Mary Luck Tales: Witch's Curse
Jamie D'Amato
The Good Vampire's Guide to Blood & Boyfriends
Mariama J. Lockington
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
Dani Diaz
Dreamover
CHILDREN & MIDDLE GRADE
P. Anastasia
POE Prophecies: Dream Within a Dream
Julia Lynne Cothran
Does a Gaggle of Geese Giggle?
Tracey Feltner Francis
The Fluffy Brown Pup That Met His New Family
Bethany Hegedus
Batter Up for the First Day of School
Amy Kapoor
Into the Blue: A Counting Adventure
Susan Mills
Oliver, the Outstanding and Original Oviraptor
Shawn Pryor
Taekwondo Academy: New Kid at the Dojang
Sandra Rippetoe
Which Bird is the Best: Wise Owl Knows
Chuck Sambuchino
Goodnight, Pickleball
Alex Scott
Chuckles the Cheese and The Midnight Thief: A Cheesy Tale of Sneaky Snacks
Gin Noon Spaulding
ERRNT
Jessica Young
Today at School with Yesterday and Tomorrow
Carlotta A. Berry
There's A Robot In My Closet
Dawn Cusick
The Astrochimps: America's First Astronauts
Carol June Franks
Sled Ride Down Unrue Street
Christine Herren
A Light in the Darkness
Nathan Will Landrum
The Specters of Mammoth Cave
Elizabeth Mongar
A Glowhearts' Christmas Tale
Tammi Jo Regan
Be Like Hank
Misako Rocks
Sew Totally Nala (Bounce Back Vol.3)
Mollie P. Sawyer
A Kentucky Adventure
Andrew Shaffer
Literary Cats Coloring Book
Sam Subity
Valor Wings
Lynn Celdrán
The Tales of Javi Ramirez: Dumplings for Breakfast
Amanda Driscoll
Under Anna's Umbrella
LaTrell Halcomb
Ouch Mr. Bear
Lyndsey Horn
When the Mountains Speak
Rachel Loftspring
Mila the Maker and the 200 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle
Miranda Montoya
Petunia Moves Again
Valerie M. Reynolds
The Twirl of Being a Little Black Girl / The Joys of Being a Little Black Boy (Second Edition)
Kay Saffari
Uno, Dos, Tres Means One, Two, Three!
Stacy Schilling
The ABC's of Wavy and Curly Hair Starring...The Frizz Girls
Jennifer Sommer
Every Creature Eats
Robyn Wall
I Worked Hard on That!