Stephanie Whetstone
Stephanie Whetstone earned her BA at Duke and her MFA in Creative Writing from UNC-Greensboro, where she was Fiction Editor of the Greensboro Review. She has been a fellow at VCCA and Hambidge, a Writer-in-Residence at Weymouth, and a Peter Taylor Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her fiction has appeared in Tulip Tree Review, Waccamaw, Waypoints, Drafthorse, the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and Narrative. A native of Kentucky, she now lives in Brooklyn.
Featured Book
Deep Belly of the Earth
Ava Maynard makes the difficult decision to leave her small coal mining town in Eastern Kentucky to make a life for herself and her son, Joshua, in the city. Her husband, Collis, won’t leave the mountains, even though he has been laid off from his job as a miner. When tragedy strikes, Ava reluctantly slips back into her spot in this troubled world relying on her deepest friendships to guide her.
Meet Stephanie Whetstone and get a copy of their book at the 2026 Kentucky Book Festival, Saturday, November 7, 2026, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.