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 Dr. H.
R. Stoneback and the
Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society from New York will be joining us again
this year. Dr. Stoneback is a Distinguished Professor of
English at State University of New York at New Paltz. He is the
recipient of the state of New York 2004 Distinguished Writer Award and
author of eight books.
Dr. H.R. Stoneback
KY Writer's Day Show - performances by
Dawn Lane Osborn, and other
Kentucky Writers' Day Musicians. Dawn is a poet, song writer, and
musician and performs professionally.
Dawn Lane Osborn
Emcee for the weekend will be Terry Ward,
writer,
journalist, historian and Chair
of the Humanities at
St. Catherine
College in Springfield, Kentucky.
List of Other Writers and Performers
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 Charlie
Perry was born and raised in Danville, Kentucky. He is a
graduate of Danville High School and attended college in
Louisville, KY. He has been in the radio business for thirty
years, and currently works for Hometown Radio, Inc. where he has
been employed for the past twenty years. He has a morning show on
AM 1230 News Talk and Country Music. He has been married for 38
years to his beautiful wife Vickie. They have three sons and two
grandsons. The twins are four years old and are a delight. |
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 Besides
being a much sought-after tuxedo model, Adam Johnson works
at the Danville/Boyle County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Previously a development officer at his alma mater, Centre College,
he has succumbed to the siren song of Kentucky's tourism industry,
tirelessly promoting all the treasures that the state and Boyle
County have to offer. When not working bridal shows and other
tuxedo-related events, he can be reached at
www.danvillekentucky.com. |
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 Nina
Clooney thinks doing many different things at once is normal,
which is why she and husband Nick have racked up enough frequent
flyer miles to keep them in the air for the next 20 years, while
traveling for work, pleasure and family events. When not in
the air, Nina has rehabbed three houses with plans to do four more;
run an antique store for ten years, served on the Augusta, Kentucky
City Council; handled Nick's bookings and attended personal
appearances with him; received a design patent for a new type of
bag for carry-out food; designed a park in Augusta and worked in
television. Nina presently serves on the Board of Directors
of the Maysville Community College and a proposed outdoor drama
theatre near Augusta, Kentucky.
Nina is married to Nick Clooney, a radio and TV
personality, television newsman and writer. She is the mother
of two children. Her daughter, Adelia Zeidler is a merit
scholar and accountant who is also the mother of Nina's
grandchildren, Allison and Nickie Zeidler. Nina's younger son
is George Clooney, an award-winning actor and producer.
Nina will be reading from her new book And
His Lovely Wife Nina. |
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Don
Dampier of Georgetown, Kentucky is the author of Finding the
Fifties. A Nicholas County native, he is a
graduate of the University of Kentucky with a degree in Commerce.
He served 40 years in state government and since retirement has
been a volunteer guide at the UK Basketball Museum, the Kentucky
History Center and currently serves on the task force of the
Kentucky Watershed Watch, an environmental protection program. |
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Brad Lanham, born and
raised in Gravel Switch Kentucky, is founder and president of the
Kentucky Fellowship of Musicians whose mission is "Bringing
Musicians Together." "There are a lot of musicians around, but they
don't seem to know each other or their shared love for music.
Giving those folks an avenue to meet and arena to play in is our
goal."
Raised on Country & Bluegrass,
rebelled with Rock, redeemed by Contemporary Christian Rock, and in
the middle of Blues & Jazz, Lanham claims to be a lover of all
genera of music. "If it's music, I want to be in the middle of it." |
Emily Toadvine is features editor at The
Advocate-Messenger in Danville where she has worked 21 years.
She lives in a log cabin in the Forkland community near Penn's Store with her husband and two
children. She enjoys reading all Kentucky writers.
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 Yolantha
Harrison-Pace, a driven advocate for literacy and the arts as a
world changing necessity, has been chosen as one of America's Most
Admired Top 100 African American Literary Divas. She is now listed
with such historical women as Maya Angelou, Sonja Sanchez,
Gwendolyn Brooks, and Angela Davis. Pace has 2 books now
published, WING-PLUCKED BUTTERFLY and SHOUT, MAMMY, SHOUT!! In
addition, she now has 5 plays to her credit, BEGINNING NOW, LOVE
YOU MADLY, ATTIC OF DREAMS, THE WHOLE SKY, and GIMME 50 FEET. |
 Paula Hill grew up in Danville, where her
father West T. Hill was chairman of the theatre department of
Centre College. He later founded West T. Hill Community
Theatre and gave Paula a great love for writing and all the fine
arts. Paula taught English and Theatre at the University of
Kentucky, Lexington Community College and Centre College. She
designs and leads fine arts tour groups to New York, London and
Tuscany. Her compositions include a chapbook of poetry: By
Heart, writing and directing plays at the West T. Hill
Community Theatre, and writing a business column for The
Advocate-Messenger.
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 Buzz
Cason--song writer, singer, and book writer--is President/Owner
of Southern Writers Group, USA, a unique collection of writer-owned
publishing catalogs, and Creative Workshop recording studio in
Nashville, Tennessee. He has recently formed his own Rock-a-billy
style band, "BC and the Dartz" and is the author of The
Adventures of Buzz Cason -- Living the Rock 'N Roll Dream. |
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Growing up on Sugar Hill Farm,
Vanessa Baker Ruda enjoyed a unique and fascinating childhood
that provides the setting for many entertaining stories.
These experiences have now become The Adventures of Johnathon
Peter, her latest book. Vanessa is a graduate of the
University of Kentucky with a degree in Agriculture, as well as one
in Vocational Education. She is a teacher at the Danville
Christian Academy, a tutor, and assists her husband in the family
business, Ruda Family Chiropractic. |
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The
Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society will be part of the events,
in conjunction with their conference at St. Catherine College in
Springfield. |
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Paula Sparrow from Kentucky
Living magazine is back with more from her Creature Comforts
column. Though she usually writes about animal rescues in Kentucky,
this time she traveled to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in
Lampang, Thailand, where she learned about the plight of the Asian
elephants there. Of her writing about elephants and all animals,
she says, "There is no greater joy for a writer than to write what
you are passionate about." |
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 Stoney &
Sparrow have been performing and writing songs together for 44
years. They have done world-wide concert tours under the
auspices of the USIA, the British Council and other international
cultural organizations throughout Asia and Europe, from China to
Thailand, Russia to France, etc. They have given concerts at
more than 100 colleges and universities, from Bejing to Cambridge
University, from the University of Paris to SUNY-New Paltz
and throughout the United States. They have been featured
club entertainers from Nashville to New York to Kentucky. In
addition, they have appeared on numerous radio and television
programs throughout the world and their songs have been widely
published. In 1984 they recorded several albums in China,
which sold more than 5 million copies there. |
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Gregg Neikirk is a professor of English at
Westfield State College (Massachusetts) where he teaches writing
and literature, including seminars in Songwriting for the English
and Music departments. A Danville native and Centre graduate with
a Ph.D from the University of Kentucky, he has written songs since
his school days in Nashville during the 1970's. He is the president
of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts literary society, and is
co-directing this year's scholarly conference and the society's
Kentucky Writer's Day events at Harrodsburg, Penn's Store, and
Springfield. Both his twin sons, Adam and Lee, are guitar majors at
Westfield State. Neikirk is married to Nancy White Neikirk, also a
Danville native.
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Christina Lovin is the author
of What We Burned for Warmth
(Finishing Line Press). Further publication credits
include: 
Harvard Summer Review, Diner,
Hunger Mountain, The Bark, Missing Mountains: We went to the
mountaintop but it wasn't there, Susan B & Me, and other
journals and anthologies. An award-winning poet, Lovin has studied
in Harvard University's writing program and holds an MFA in
Creative Writing from New England College. She is the recipient of
several artists' grants from the Kentucky Arts Council (most
notably a 2007 Al Smith Fellowship) and the Kentucky Foundation for
Women. Chosen by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Lovin
recently served as Writer-in-Residence at Devil's Tower National
Monument, Wyoming; and the Andrews Experimental Forest near
Corvallis, Oregon, in conjunction with the Spring Creek Project,
which selects writers whose work focuses on nature and/or ecology.
Lovin teaches college level writing courses and presents writing
workshops in and around Central Kentucky. |
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 Randy
Layne might be the only guitar player ever that played with
both Archie Bell ("Tighten Up") and also Archie Campbell (Hee Haw).
That might also explain his love for all styles of music he has
performed through the years with artists such as The Jordonaires,
Con Hunley, and Linda Davis.
For the last 17 years, he has
also performed with Steve Jarrell and the Sons of the Beach, a
7-piece Carolina Shag and Oldies Band that performed all of the
music for the very successful PBS special "Rock & Roll Graffiti."
Thirty-seven original artists performed on this live show with the Sons of
the Beach playing the music for all of their hit songs.
Randy has also performed on"Austin City Limits",
"Nashville Now", and many other TV shows over
the years.
He still finds time to write and
perform his original songs in many performing situations. His
latest CD is "40 Years, 6 Strings, & 2 Million Miles" that features
all original music that he wrote. This CD represents all of the
influences that have formed his style. |
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Temple Pond was born and raised in New Hampshire where
he grew up as part of an old Yankee family and spent time working
on dairy and horse farms. [He even met his future wife Catherine on
her family farm.] He spins many a good yarn, all of which he says
have some truth to them somewhere. He and his wife, writer
Catherine Seiberling Pond, have recently bought land in Pulaski
County, Kentucky where they intend to live and have a small farm.
Catherine Seiberling Pond is a writer and architectural
historian with an MA in historic preservation studies from Boston
University. A former house museum manager, she now contributes to magazines such as Old-House
Interiors and maintains a blog on domestic life and rural
living at inthepantry.blogspot.com. She will read from her first
book The Pantry ~ Its History and Modern Uses which will be
published by Gibbs Smith Publishers [www.gibbs-smith.com]
in May 2007. Catherine was born and raised in Ohio but has spent
most of her life in New England where she and husband Temple
presently make their home with their three children. |
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Linda S. Prather was born in
Kentucky and is a resident
of Lexington. Her greatest desire as a writer is to write
characters that readers love, hate, laugh and cry with. She
loves learning -- period. She received an associate degree in
metaphysics in 1992 and has become a Certified Clinical
Hypnotherapist. Her first novel, The Gifts,
incorporated metaphysics into fiction. |
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Tony
Cooper is a resident of Casey County, Kentucky. He works as a
para-professional in the county school system. He enjoys writing
songs and playing music any time he can. While he likes many types
and genres of music, his favorites are the old time tearjerkers. |
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Blues guitarist Jonathan "Jonny B" Bramel is
a Louisville resident and native of Lebanon, Kentucky. Bramel
attends the University of Louisville but is presently on leave,
studying guitar styles to further his career and love of music. |
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Andy Rice, a native of Pulaski
County, Kentucky currently resides in Boyle County with his wife
Jane. Andy's musical inspiration comes from his uncle, who
would
bring his guitar to family gatherings and perform for the family.
Andy's mother Geneva Rice was also an inspiration as she also
played the guitar and sang. Andy has written two songs,
"Which Way to Pray" and "Slipped and Fell in Love". Andy also
played guitar and sang solo in a country band named "Andy and the
Dandy's" in the early 1980s. In the '80s and '90s he played
with "The Kings Mt. Bluegrass Boys." |
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A native of Mercer County, Kentucky, Tony
Sexton lives on a small farm and is retired from The Kentucky
Utilities Company after 31 years of service. He graduated from the
University of Kentucky with a degree in creative writing and a
minor in psychology. When not gardening, his time is spent
writing. When asked about his poetry, his reply is, "I want
to write in such a way that if I drop a copy of one of my poems on
Main Street and someone comes along and picks it up, they could
read and understand it. Where Walt Whitman may have failed, I want
to succeed as being a poet for the common man."
His writing credits include:
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Short stories and poetry published in
nationally distributed publications, including Good Old Days
Magazine
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In depth interviews with Kentucky Authors,
published in The Journal for Kentucky Studies from the
Northern Kentucky University
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Four years as a columnist for The
Danville Advocate Messenger [The columns were nostalgic,
humor or opinion.]
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Four years as a contributing columnist for
The Mercer Magazine, a monthly publication of The
Harrodsburg Herald. He was instrumental in helping create
this magazine and wrote various columns including a humor column,
a column relating to country stores and others about local
history.
Sexton also developed and directed a festival for writers, which
was held in Harrodsburg. The festival was called "Celebrate
Kentucky Writers" and brought together both seasoned and aspiring
writers for a 3-day workshop. Three of those festivals had
anthologies published with writing of all the participants,
including the seasoned writers. One of his poems was included in
the opening day publication for the Carnegie Center for Literacy
and Learning in Lexington, Kentucky. Only 13 writers from the
state were included in this publication.
He has conducted many writing workshops through the years and
presently leads two for the Mercer County Public Library. He has
also been editor and contributor to several newsletters over the
years and is presently developing one for local writers. He has
just completed his first novel in a series of novels about a
private investigator in Lexington, Kentucky. The title for the book
is Blood in the Bluegrass. He has had poetry published in
JAR, a publication of the honors program for the University
of Kentucky. |
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Craig Evan Royce was born in Oakland,
California, and received a Bachelor's Degree from the University of
Kentucky, where he became interested in the people and art of the
Appalachian Southern Highlands. A short time thereafter he
returned to California and opened a museum/gallery in the art
colony of Laguna Beach that features art from the southern
highlands.
In the 30th Anniversary Edition of his 1976 book,
COUNTRY MILES ARE LONGER THAN CITY MILES; An Important Document
in the Art and Social History of Americana (now available
through AuthorHouse.), CRAIG EVAN ROYCE pays tribute to the artists
and craftsmen of the state of Kentucky. Compiled from photos,
oral histories recorded on location in 1975, and from interviews
with the artisans themselves, Royce documents in COUNTRY MILES
ARE LONGER THAN CITY MILES the timeless story of southern
highlands culture, its great artisans and the Pine Mountain
Settlement School in Harlan County, Kentucky. ( The tapes have
been subsequently archived in the special collections at the
University of Kentucky).
He has also discovered and recorded seven archaic
and prehistoric archaeological sites in the Northern Canyonlands
Province of the Colorado Plateau in the San Rafael Swell region of
Southeastern Utah. These sites have been assigned Smithsonian
Site Numbers through the state of Utah Division of State History.
Artifacts from the largest of the sites are curated in the US
Department of the Interior collection at the College of Eastern
Utah Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah.
Since 1993 he has served as the Kentucky Department
of Fish and Wildlife Services Non-Game Program Peregrine Falcon
Restoration Project Lexington Falcon Watch Volunteer Coordinator in
Lexington, Kentucky. |
Virginia (Gigi) Ragland Biles
is the author of A Child's Garden of Blessings, published by
Publications International, Ltd, in April 2005. After 32
years of
teaching Gigi retired to pursue a writing career. A Danville
native, she acts and directs in the West T. Hill Community Theatre.
She has had stories published in many collections of children's
stories and enjoys going to schools and reading or talking about
the writing process. |
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 Joberta
Wells is a self-proclaimed writing imposter. After graduation
from college (UK, of course), she became a blood banker and worked
in hospitals in Lexington, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and then spent
21 years at Central Kentucky Blood Center in Lexington. In 1994
she returned to Casey County, her home, and worked two more years
in hospitals in Somerset and Liberty. She retired at a tender age
and pursued a part-time career in house cleaning, banking, blood
banking consulting, marketing, and trying not to get on any more
boards.
Joberta was a technical writer
during her career as a blood banker but it was never for fun. In
1998 Donna Carman, the new editor of The Casey County News
in Liberty, asked her to write a monthly opinion column called
It's A Hoot. Over the subsequent years the column has
appeared more frequently than monthly and she has done other
writing for the paper. All of her writing has been for fun
and she says, "I don't do murder, rape and pillaging, beauty
pageants, or turkey- and deer-shooting stories. Let the pros
do those."
Joberta lives on a farm in
Yosemite where she feeds a flock of turkeys, a herd of deer, a
passel of 'possums, a community of 'coons, a family of foxes, a
quartet of cattle, and a cat or two.
"God,
keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth." |
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 Susan H. Simpson is a Kentucky educator with her B.A., her
masters, and a Rank I so the three R's are still important, but the
three P's reflect her current interests: Painting, Poetry and
Photography. Her interest in Photography has blossomed as she loves
to shoot her flower gardens and all aspects of nature as well as
record all of her travels, both home and abroad.
Just
as she loves the whole process of shooting the picture and then
selecting and manipulating it in some way, either with cropping or
image control, she loves to use words to create pictures. She also
does oil and acrylic painting, especially from her trips to France.
Susan is a retired high school English teacher of 35 years, but she
now serves as a high school librarian. Her love of books and
poetry is in full swing. She belongs to a central Kentucky group
called the Poet's Supper which promotes the reading and writing of
poetry. A few of her poems are published in that group's
publications. |
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BILLYBLUES has now been creating its distinctive blues-based
music for more than a decade. With four CDs to their credit, the
band covers lots of territory- rockabilly, rock, folk, bluegrass,
and gospel,but always from a firm foundation of the blues.
BILLYBLUES has won fans around the U.S. and,
increasingly, the world, for their songwriting and three-part
harmonies. Their songs frequently tell stories punctuated by tasty
guitar, harmonica, slide, and mandolin solos. Their latest CD,
"Blind Date," has won particular praise for its
solid groove and inventive lyrics. "Who Controls the Kisses?"
(Described by one reviewer as Bo Diddley meets Franz Kafka), "Every
Kind of Fool" (with its compelling blend of Latin and rock
rhythms), and "Drifting and Drinking" are performance standouts."When
the Big Dog Barks", also from "Blind Date," has been credited
with reviving canine rock (dormant since Elvis Presley's "You Ain't
Nothing but a Hound Dog").
Beyond their club schedule, BILLYBLUES has played respected
roots-music events such as the Hot August Blues Festival and the
North Charleston Arts Festival as well as major regional venues
such as the Brown Theatre and the Kentucky Theater in Louisville
and the Norton Center for the Arts in Danville, Kentucky.
BILLYBLUES regularly performs on radio (Louisville's Homefront and
Red Barn Radio, for example) and has gotten radio play on
mainstream stations around Kentucky and on blues and colleges
stations around the U.S. International play includes Argentina,
Denmark, England, and Eastern Europe. "Hoot Owl Blues" and "El
Camino" were highlighted in a Kentucky Educational Television
feature on the band.
The group is composed of:
Mark Lucas: bass, slide guitar, and vocals
Mike Norris: harmonica, guitar, and vocals
Colin Raitiere: bass, mandolin, and vocals
David White: drums and other percussion
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Jack Lee Engle is a multi-talented photographer and song
writer/musician. A former Playboy magazine staff
photographer, he is currently considered one of the finest cave
photographers in the nation. His three dimensional
photographic art presentation of Kentucky's famous Red River Gorge,
WONDERVISION, was at one time considered the largest three
dimensional photographic system in the world. It is scored by
his own Red River Rhapsody.
As a song writer, he has had material purchased and published by
Acuff-Rose, presently Sony Music, including material co-authored by
Penn's Store's own Jeanne Penn Lane, which listed in Billboard's
Top 100 Country Hits. |
 Chris
Hamilton is director of Lebanon & Marion County Tourism. He
is the former sports editor, former news editor and former editor
of The Lebanon Enterprise. |
Ramona Powers lives in
Springfield, KY where she owns and operates a music store called
The Musicians Playground. She has played and sung music
since she was eight years old, and was lead singer and rhythm
guitarist in the band Night Owls when she was twenty years old. |
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 Singer
Songwriter Gary Cooper plays the guitar; Patti Ritter
plays the fiddle and they make beautiful harmonies together
performing original songs and covers. They play in
restaurants and bars, at parties and on many porches with friends.
Folks enjoy their range of musical styles from blues to swing, a
little bluegrass to country, and as much rock and roll as two
people can pull off. Home is down in a holler in Cumberland
County, Kentucky; in their travels they have played at events and
venues in Nashville, Bowling Green, New Jersey, Colorado and many
places in between. Visit their website at
www.artmusic.net. |
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Thank you, Country Hearth Inn, for being a
sponsor.
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View the 2006
Kentucky Writers Day Events Here
For more information contact Jeanne Penn Lane at
Penn's
Store (859) 332-7706 or (859) 332-7715, or
e-mail
PennsStore@aol.com.
It is best to call ahead to check times and
cancellations.
Penn's Store
257 Penn's Store Road
Gravel Switch, Kentucky 40328
859-332-7715 or 859-332-7706
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