Kentucky Book Festival #44

This Saturday, November 1st, is the 44th annual Kentucky Book Festival at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Kentucky. To save you having to do the math, the first one was in 1981. The Kentucky Book Fair, as it was called before becoming the Kentucky Book Festival, was the brainchild of Carl West, a nationally recognized journalist who spent time in Washington D.C. covering the White House and Pentagon before returning to Kentucky as the editor of Frankfort’s State Journal. While in Washington, his work with the National Press Club’s Book Fair inspired him to establish a similar event in Frankfort, Kentucky’s state capital. The first Kentucky Book Fair was held at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives building with forty authors. A thousand booklovers showed up to talk with them and see their books.

I first enjoyed being a Kentucky Book Fair author in the 1980’s with my middle reader and young adult books. You don’t see one of my books in the picture because I had already signed them all for young readers. One year, a young person, who was the daughter of a book fair volunteer, bought one of my books early in the day. Before I left that afternoon, she came back to tell me she liked my story. She had found a reading corner and read the entire book before the day was through.

The number of authors invited increased every year as did the number of readers who attended. Eventually, the Fair was moved to the Kentucky State University and then to the Frankfort Convention Center where every year saw increased attendance. At the Book Fairs in Frankfort and then Lexington I have had my picture taken with many other authors and readers. One year I had the pleasure of posing with Woody, the dachshund, who with the help of his friend Leigh Anne Florence, had many stories and would sign his books with his paw print. You can probably see the ink on his paw in our picture. Talk about a popular signing table. Woody made friends from all over. Maybe it was those sunglasses.

The very same year, 2013, Santa Claus was there and came over for a picture at my book table. That must have been my year for memorable pictures.

Unfortunately, due to structural problems, the Convention Center was razed in 2018. People still tell me how much they miss the Fair taking place at the Frankfort Convention Center, but I’m glad the Fair, now Festival, survived and continued on in Lexington.

The first two years after the Convention Center was gone, the Book Fair moved to the Kentucky Horse Park arena. In 2020, the Covid pandemic necessitated it being a virtual event. Since then The Kentucky Book Festival has been hosted by the Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington and the Kentucky Humanities, an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C. The organization supports many humanities programs and events that share Kentucky’s story. They now host additional special author presentations and events to complement the Kentucky Book Festival each year.

So, many thanks to Carl West for his vision of a Kentucky Book Fair to celebrate reading and for how he supported the Fair with his presence and love of books until his death in 2016. Also, the Fair could never have continued through the years without the dedicated work of the directors and organizers along with the many volunteers who helped keep the Book Festival going continuously for forty-four years. If you love books, it’s the best place to be on a Saturday in November and a great place to Christmas shop for a signed book for the booklovers in your family or for yourself.

In 2011, I had help at my book table – my husband and granddaughter.

I haven’t been to all forty-four Kentucky Book Festivals, but I’ve enjoyed the twenty-five or so I have been fortunate to attend as an author.

Have you ever been to a Book Festival? 

If you are able to be at Joseph-Beth Booksellers this Saturday, November 1st, be sure to hunt me up and say hello.