Culinary Conversations with Crystal Wilkinson in conversation with Ronni Lundy
Presented by The Kentucky Book Festival and Kentucky Humanities, this program is part of the main festival on November 2.
Crystal Wilkinson
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts
Recipient of a Writing Freedom fellowship, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry, an O. Henry Prize, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, a USA Artists Fellowship, and an Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence, Crystal Wilkinson was Poet Laureate of Kentucky from 2021 to 2023 and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Kentucky where she is a Bush-Holbrook Endowed Professor and Director of the Divsion of Creative Writing. Her latest book, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, a lyrical culinary journey that explores the hidden legacy of Black Appalachians, through powerful storytelling alongside nearly forty comforting recipes, was named a Most Anticipated Book or Best Book in 2024 So Far by Ms. Magazine, Book Riot, Parade, Electric Lit, The Root, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and others.
Ronni Lundy
Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes
Former restaurant reviewer and music critic for The Courier-Journal and former editor of Louisville Magazine, Ronni Lundy has long chronicled the people of the hillbilly diaspora as a journalist and cookbook author and has been recognized for her work with the Southern Foodways Alliance Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award. Winner of the James Beard Foundation Book of the Year Award and Best Book, American Cooking, Victuals is an exploration of the foodways, people, and places of Appalachia.