Kentucky-born son of a choir director and violinist, Steven L. Jones is an artist, writer, musician, and former instructor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His first book, Murder Ballads Old and New is a graveyard stroll that’s equal parts musicological, psychosocial, and genealogical, excavating facts and exploring stories that reveal larger contexts while mapping the lineages of songs and themes, forebears, and ancestors.
A passionate member of the Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative and an active member of St. Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church, Eugenia Johnson-Smith teaches writing classes and serves on the Board of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. She wrote the Foreword and several stories for The Midway Museum Midway African Heritage Series Book No. 2 published in June 2023. Positive Power is a collection of empowering stories and poems for anyone who needs encouragement or inspiration along their spiritual journey.
A contributor to National Public Radio, Harper’s Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, Fenton Johnson has received numerous literary awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Lambda Literary Awards in both fiction and creative nonfiction. and his induction into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. Scissors, Paper, Rock delves into the complexities of human relationships, identity, and the search for self-discovery. Kentucky Humanities selected the novel for its 2024 Kentucky Reads to serve as a focal point for community-wide book discussions that promote a shared literary experience and celebrate the diverse voices and stories that shape Kentucky’s rich cultural landscape.
Recipient of the Thomas D. Clark Medallion Award, Dr. Eric R. Jackson is a Professor of History and Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Northern Kentucky University, with thirty years of university experience and over fifty publications. In An Introduction to Black Studies, Jackson connects the growth and impact of Black studies to the broader context of social justice movements, emphasizing the historical and contemporary demand for the discipline.
Friends for more than 20 years, Cameron M. Ludwick and Blair Thomas Hess have written four Kentucky travel books that serve as handbooks to destinations across the state as well as reliable sources of history, culture, arts, events, food, entertainment and living. Their latest book, Kentucky, Y’all is an entertaining and informative compilation of the state’s favorite oddities, quirks, and traditions told through their best stories from their experiences as writers, travelers, and residents in this ode to the Commonwealth.
Previously a tenured associate professor of English at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, Melissa Helton, serves as the literary arts director for the Hindman Settlement School. In Troublesome Rising, a visceral and powerful anthology, well-known and emerging Appalachian writers create not only a historical document and an in-depth investigation of the late July 2022 catastrophic flash flood in eastern Kentucky, but also a celebration of Appalachian strength, determination, and resilience.
Dr. Nicholas D. Hartlep holds the Robert Charles Billings Endowed Chair in Education at Berea College, where he chairs the Education Studies Department. With chapters contributed by a diversity of higher education staff and faculty, Belonging in Higher Education illuminates autoethnographic stories of belonging in higher education in the United States.
American sports broadcaster Tom Hammond retired after a renowned rise to the top levels of sportscasting including a thirty-four-year career with NBC Sports. Mark Story has been a sports reporter with the Lexington Herald-Leader for more than three decades. In Races, Games, and Olympic Dreams, along with cowriter Story, Hammond offers an intimate and gripping look at his experiences from broadcasting from thirteen Olympic Games and sixteen Kentucky Derbys to providing the play-by-play voice for Notre Dame football and announcing SEC men’s basketball.
Twice the recipient of the American Women in Radio and Television Award, Barbara Bradley Hagerty is a New York Times bestselling author, contributing writer for The Atlantic, and covered criminal justice and religion for nearly 20 years with NPR. Her third book, Bringing Ben Home, tells the story of Ben Spencer, a Black man wrongly convicted and sentenced to life before being freed after 34 years, a case which reveals how easy it is to convict an innocent person and how impossible it is to undo the mistake.
Formerly an American collegiate and professional basketball player, broadcaster, and real estate developer, Jack “Goose” Givens currently serves as the vice president of business development and external affairs at Bowlin Group and as a radio color analyst for the UK Sports Network. Doug Brunk is an award-winning journalist who has written hundreds of articles for trade and consumer publications. They Call Me Goose presents fans with the powerful story of a husband, father, mentor, businessman, and ambassador for Kentucky—who also just happens to be an iconic sports legend.
With a career spanning both academia and public history, including several years with the Smithsonian Institution, Daniel Gifford is a public historian who focuses on American popular and visual culture, as well as museums in American culture. His most recent book, Benefactors of Posterity, explores the Filson Historical Society’s founding era and Louisville in the Gilded Age.
Former writer, editor, and bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, George Getschow is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting and director of the Archer City Writers Worshop. Pastures of the Empty Page brings together fellow writers to honor Larry McMurtry and his impact on American letters.
Tama Fortner is an ECPA award-winning and bestselling author with more than sixty titles to her credit including collaborations with such well-known authors as Max Lucado, Levi Lusko, Sadie Robertson Huff, and Emily Ley. Everyday Joys Devotional is an invitation to see and experience joy with forty short, sometimes humorous and always real and thought-provoking interactive devotions.
Roda Ferraro, Director of Keeneland Library, has more than 25 years of experience leading, assessing, and promoting library, museum, research, and educational services, including her work with National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. The first comprehensive chronicle of its kind, The Heart of the Turf showcases 125 select stories of the countless African Americans from racetrack superstars to behind-the-scenes caretakers who forged their way in Kentucky and beyond making the racing industry what it is today.
One of the first Kentuckians to join the Peace Corps, William E. Davis has spent the past 45 years working in the field of improving justice systems across the United States and internationally. An account of a life framed by family, faith, and service, In Service to Justice is a part spiritual and part adventure story.