What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?
I’m primarily a poet (wait! keep reading!) but my new book, Before the Storm Takes It Away, is a departure for me—a collection of 120 brief and wide-ranging nonfiction essays.
Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?
As I say, the essays are wide-ranging—both in tone and subject—and, fingers crossed, inviting. Tales of exotic travel, some good recipes (including tips for panic baking), namedropping and juicy gossip from the literary world and beyond, plenty of birdwatching (i.e., bird geeking, perfected during Covid), stories about growing up in Louisville that I’ve never shared before, and plenty of hanging out with my sweet and beautiful old dog Lucy. Oh, and, of course, advice on choosing the correct superpower! And breeding day lilies.
In other words, something for everyone, I hope. Time allowing, I’ll also try to have some freshly baked treats at the table. Please come on by and say howdy.
Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?
I grew up in Louisville and attended UofL as an undergraduate, but it didn’t seem equitable to blow all my student loans only at Churchill Downs, so to spread the wealth I’d occasionally drive to Keeneland and make a donation there. Lexington was, of course, enemy territory re basketball, but keeping a low profile I’d celebrate my losses with a fine pie at Joe Bologna’s, an institution whose pizza I remember fondly.
Is this your first time participating in Kentucky Book Festival? If yes – what are you looking forward to the most? If you’ve participated before – what was your favorite experience at the Festival?
This is my first time participating at the Kentucky Book Festival. I’m looking forward to it, and the commute from Tennessee—where I live in a log cabin in the woods—isn’t bad. I haven’t been to Lexington in decades. Is Joe Bologna’s still around?
