For the first time ever, the Kentucky Book Fair will be presented in Lexington from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, at the Alltech Arenaat the Kentucky Horse Park. Now in its 36th year, the fair will feature more than 180 authors and editors showcasing their most recent books, including several writers from University Press of Kentucky (UPK) and the University of Kentucky. The fair is free and open to the public.

Presented by Kentucky Humanities, the Kentucky Book Fair attracts thousands of avid readers and patrons from across the country. The fair boasts a wide selection of publications for every reader in your household ranging from children's books and regional cookbooks to wartime histories and poetry collections. Founded in 1981, the Kentucky Book Fair is the state's leading literary event and the largest and oldest event of its kind in the state.

Six of the UPK authors and editors who will participate in the Kentucky Book Fair have connections to UK. They are:

• UK English Professor Julia Johnson, editor of “The New and Collected Poems of Jane Gentry”;
• Emeritus Professor of Law Robert G. Lawson, author of “Who Killed Betty Gail Brown? Murder, Mistrial, and Mystery”;
• former faculty member George Ella Lyon, author of “Many-Storied House: Poems,”among others;
• former faculty member Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, author of “At The Breakers: A Novel”and “Come and Go, Molly Snow: A Novel”;
• alumnus Richard Taylor, author of “Sue Mundy: A Novel of the Civil War”; and
• UK English Professor Frank X Walker, author of “Buffalo Dance: The Journal of York” and “When Winter Come: The Ascension of York” published by UPK and the new book “Ink Stains & Watermarks: New and Uncollected Poems.”

Other authors of publications from UPK participating in the fair and their corresponding books are:

• Bill Best and Dobree Adams, coauthors of “Kentucky Heirloom Seeds: Growing, Eating, Saving”;
• James Archambeault, author “Kentucky Horse Country: Images of the Bluegrass”and “James Archambeault's Historic Kentucky”;
• Jack R. Baker, coauthor of “Wendell Berry and Higher Education: Cultivating Virtues of Place”;
• Carol Boggess, author of “James Still, A Life”;
• James P. Cousins, author of “Horace Holley: Transylvania University and the Making of Liberal Education in the Early American Republic”;
• William E. Ellis, author of “Irvin S. Cobb: The Rise and Fall of an American Humorist”;
• bell hooks, author of “Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place”;
• Fenton Johnson, author of “The Man Who Loved Birds,” among others;
• James W. Miller, author of “Integrated: The Lincoln Institute, Basketball, and a Vanished Tradition”;
• William Lynwood Montell, author of “Tales of Kentucky Ghosts,” among others;
• Colleen O’Connor Olson, author of “Mammoth Cave Curiosities: A Guide to Rockphobia, Dating, Saber-toothed Cats, and Other Subterranean Marvels”;
• Carol Peachee, author of “The Birth of Bourbon: A Photographic Tour of Early Distilleries”;
• Rachel Danielle Peterson, author of “A Girl’s A Gun: Poems”;
• Garin Pirnia, author of “The Beer Cheese Book”;
• Susan Reigler, author of “Kentucky Bourbon Country,” among others;
• Rion Amilcar Scott, author of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award-winning “Insurrections: Stories”;
• Bob Thompson, author of “Hitchhiker: Stories from the Kentucky Homefront”;
• Crystal Wilkinson, author of “The Birds of Opulence,” among others; and
• Aimee Zaring, author of “Flavors from Home: Refugees in Kentucky Share Their Stories and Comfort Foods.”

Several other current UK faculty and alumni will also take part in the Kentucky Book Fair. These authors are:

• alumna Nancy Kelly Allen, author of “Gone Cuckoo”;
• alumnus and former faculty member Wendell Berry, author of “The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings”;
• alumnus and former governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear, author of “People Over Politics”;
• Otis A. Singletary Chair in the Humanities and UK Gender and Women's Studies Professor Susan Bordo, author of “The Destruction of Hillary Clinton”;
• alumna Erin Chandler, author of “June Bug Versus Hurricane: A Memoir”;
• alumnus Dale Due, author of “Wildcats Win Again!”;
• alumnus James B. Goode, author of “Kentucky's Literary Landscape, The Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame (2013-2017)”;
• alumnus Ed Hamilton, author of “Lords of the Schoolyard”;
• alumna Rebecca Gaye Howell, author of “American Purgatory”;
• alumna Holly Goddard Jones, author of “The Salt Line”;
• alumnus Maurice Manning, author of “One Man’s Dark”;
• alumna and former faculty member Bobbie Ann Mason, author of the “The Girl in the Blue Beret”;
• alumnus Guy Mendes, author of “Kentucky Renaissance, The Lexington Camera Club and Its Community, 1954-1974”;
• UK Fine Arts Institute instructor Lennon Michalski, author of “How Penguins Save Television”;
• alumnus Jonathan Miller, author of “Alone Again”;
• Director of Creative Writing at UK Hannah Pittard, author of “Listen to Me”; and
• Edward T. Breathitt Professor of Law Richard Underwood, author of “Gaslight Lawyers: Criminal Trials & Exploits in Gilded Age New York.”

To see a full listing of authors and editors participating in the Kentucky Book Fair, visit https://www.kyhumanities.org/2017kbfauthors.html.

UPK is the scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, representing a consortium that includes all the state universities, five private colleges and two historical societies. The press’ editorial program focuses on the humanities and the social sciences. Offices for the administrative, editorial, production and marketing departments of the press are found at UK, which provides financial support toward the operating expenses of the publishing operation through the UK Libraries.

For more information on the book fair and the featured authors, visit the fair's website,  https://www.kyhumanities.org/kentuckybookfair.html.