What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?
Visitors will find our new book published in Fall 2024, Kentucky, Y’all: A Celebration of the People and Culture of the Bluegrass State. This is our fifth book about Kentucky history and culture. Readers may be familiar with our road trip guides including My Old Kentucky Road Trip and the State of Bourbon, both of which have previously been featured at the Kentucky Book Festival.
Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?
We love to talk to Kentuckians — natives or current residents — from all ages and backgrounds. We’ve been friends since we were kids and have been traveling together across Kentucky for more than two decades. We’ve crisscrossed this state multiple times and are always looking to swap stories about our travels, hear about new places to visit, share our experiences and tips and tricks, and just meet our fellow Kentuckians. This book explores our state’s unique culture and many historic events through the lens of fun topics including clothes, food and parties. We like sharing our state’s history in a fun and approachable way. There’s a little something for everyone in this one.
Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?
We’ve been friends since we were kids, and we took our very first Kentucky road trip together right after we graduated college — to Mammoth Cave! On that first trip, we slept in wigwams, visited an old country store, stumbled upon Dinosaur World, and decided to blog about our travels. That blog is what landed us our very first publishing deal in 2014, and we haven’t stopped yet! We love to talk and love to share our stories and hear stories from others, especially about their love for the Commonwealth.
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?
We’ve been lucky enough to participate in the Kentucky Book Festival twice before. On our very first trip here, we sold out of our books! We were so excited, and that definitely tops our list of favorite experiences. But we also love meeting our fellow Kentucky authors, many of whom have become friends over the years. And we get to talk to so many Kentuckians and always leave with a new Kentucky destination that we haven’t yet explored.
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, 
