2025 AUTHOR LINEUP

Meet the incredible lineup of authors joining us at the Kentucky Book Festival! Click on an author’s name, book title, or cover image to explore their featured work and learn more about them.

FICTION

Sylvia Ahrens

Out on a Limb

Crystal Caudill

Written in Secret

Christina Dotson

Love You To Death

Ann H. Gabhart

The Pursuit of Elena Bradford

Christopher J. Helvey

Revolution

Nancy Jensen

In Our Midst

Chris McClain Johnson

Three Guesses

Dwain W. Lee

Plausible Deception

Lee Martin

The Evening Shades

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

David Starkey

The Fairley Brothers in Japan

Nathan Vanderford & Holly Burke

Cancer in Appalachia: A Collection of Youth-Told Stories Volume 2

B. Elizabeth Beck

Swan Songs

Lee Cole

Fulfillment

Sherrie Flick

I Have Not Considered Consequences

Kristen Gentry

Mama Said

Julie Hensley

Five Oaks

Wendy Jett

Woman

Toni Ann Johnson

Light Skin Gone to Waste

Madge Maril

Slipstream

T.J. Martinson

Her New Eyes

Elizabeth Bass Parman

Bees in June

Mark Rigney

Vinyl Wonderland

Virginia Smith

Wed and Gone

Erin Cecilia Thomas

I Watched You from the Ocean Floor

Lawrence Weill

The Metaphysics Shoppe of Wylers Ford

Billy Parks Burton

Turn a Blind Eye

Susan Coventry

Till Taught by Pain

Julia Flint

We Were Promised: How an Appalachian Grandmother Fought a Corporate Giant

Matt Goldman

The Murder Show

Silas House

Dead Man Blues

Bob Johnson

The Continental Divide

Sarah Landenwich

The Fire Concerto

James Markert

Spider to the Fly

Catherine McKenzie

No One Was Supposed to Die at this Wedding

Steven Penn

A Trunk in the Basement

Julia Seales

A Terribly Nasty Business

Allegra Solomon

There's Nothing Left for You Here

Gerald Toner

Christmas in Our Time

TJ West

Country Road Romance

NONFICTION

Martha A. Barnette

Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland

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

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

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

Martha A. Barnette

Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland

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

Grant Barrett

Perfect English Grammar

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)

Marie Mitchell

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

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.

Mandi Sheffel

The Nature of Pain: Roots, Recovery, and Redemption amid the Opioid Crisis

Elaine F. Weiss

Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement

Bob Willcutt

Gratz Park The Heart of Historic Lexington

Jan Brandenburg

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

Eliza McGraw

Astride: Horses, Women, and a Partnership That Shaped America

Christopher Newman

Marion: The Marion Miley Story, 1914-1941

Laura A. Pare

See You In August: the Quilts of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival

Gretchen Rubin

Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives

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

Fiona Young Brown

Secret Lexington: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure

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

Rosalie Moffett

Making a Living

Jeremy Paden

how to recognize god's chosen

Roberta Schultz

Deep Ends

Cecilia G. Woloch

Labor: The Testimony of Ted Gall

David B. Cazden

New Stars And Constellations (Bainbridge Island Press, 2024).

Ronald W. Davis

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

Kevin Nance

Smoke

Marianne Peel

Untamed Arabesque

Carine Topal

Dear Blood,

Alfonso Zapata

To Pay for Our Next Breath: 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

Rebecca Gayle Howell

Erase Genesis

Denton Loving

Feller

Christopher McCurry

The Gospel of God Boy

Pat Owen

The Crossroad

Amy Richardson

Out of Places

Artress White

A Black Doe in the Anthropocene: Poems

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 for the First Day of School

Amy Kapoor

Into the Blue: A Counting Adventure

Nathan Will Landrum

The Specters of Mammoth Cave

Elizabeth Mongar

A Glowhearts' Christmas Tale

Tammi Jo Regan

Be Like Hank

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

Taylor Woolley

Earth Rover

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

Rachel Tawil Kenyon

You Can Sit with Me

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)

Misako Rocks

Sew Totally Nala (Bounce Back Vol.3)

Mollie P. Sawyer

A Kentucky Adventure

Andrew Shaffer

Literary Cats Coloring Book

Robyn Wall

I Worked Hard on That!

Jessica Young

Today at School with Yesterday and Tomorrow

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

Jason Lady

The Pure Shore Club

Susan Mills

Oliver, the Outstanding and Original Oviraptor

Shawn Pryor

Taekwondo Academy: New Kid at the Dojang

David Rickert

Checkups, Shots, and Robots: True Stories Behind How Doctors Treat Us

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

Alex Willan

Mermaids are the Worst!