Bookworm Bonanza
Kentucky
Book Fair
unites readers with authors
Annual
event in Frankfort is largest
of its kind in the Bluegrass State
By
Helen E. McKinney
Contributing Writer
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2008
November |
FRANKFORT, Ky. (November 2008) – Lynn Tincher
has always loved a good thriller – so much so that she has
recently written a psychological thriller of her own. Tincher’s
first book, “Afterthoughts,” explores the ideas of schizophrenia,
mind reading, remote viewing and mental illness, qualities enveloped
by murder and mind control. She is donating 10 percent of the book’s
proceeds to the American Cancer Society.
“The backbone of the book is the mind reading or schizophrenic
aspects and how they may or may not be related to each other,”
said Tincher, 40. “The idea I had was never developed anywhere
that I had found. At least not in the way I had envisioned.”
Tincher said the concept for “Afterthoughts” had been in her
mind for several years as a plausible story. She finally took the time
to sit down and develop characters and flesh out a story to complete
the idea.
The Prospect, Ky., author will be one of 220 featured authors at the
2008 Kentucky Book Fair. The 27th annual event takes place Saturday,
Nov. 15, in Frankfort. A diverse combination of authors, some first-timers
and some seasoned writers, are scheduled to meet the public and take
part in various events, from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. at the Frankfort
Convention Center.
The Book Fair is Kentucky’s premier literary event and one of the
largest of its kind in the nation. It is sponsored by the The State
Journal, Frankfort’s daily newspaper, and co-sponsored by the Kentucky
Department for Libraries and Archives and the University Press of Kentucky.
 Kentucky
Book Fair •
9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, at the Frankfort Convention
Center, 405 Mero St., Frankfort, Ky. Events
Schedule •
9:15 a.m.: “Death Before Slavery,” presented by
Erma Bush, Kentucky Humanities Council Chautauqua Performer, as
Margaret Garner (not appropriate for children under the age of
13) Other Book
Fair Activities • Conversation
with Joan Medlicott, author of “The Ladies of Covington
Send Their Love,” noon at the Convention Center. Tickets
$15. Call (502) 273-2911 |
“Being selected for the Kentucky Book Fair has helped
open doors for me that may otherwise not have been opened for a new
author with her first book. I am grateful for that,” Tincher said.
The Book Fair provides authors of all genres the “chance to meet
their readers, hear their likes and dislikes about specific works, and
peddle their wares,” said Lynda Sherrard, the event’s marketing
chairperson.
“Some potential buyers want to talk writing styles,” said
Sherrard. “The patron may be an aspiring writer, a reader of a
particular genre, or someone just browsing for something that attracts
him to the author’s table.”
The Kentucky Book Fair was conceived by Carl West and a group of dedicated
book lovers, librarians and genuine good hearted individuals, said event
organizer Connie Crowe. “To date, we have awarded over $300,000
in grants to public schools and libraries” through the library
collection grant.
All ages are welcomed to the Book Fair and admission is free. Additional
activities include face painting, costumed characters, and special readings
by authors. The Kentucky Book Fair will be joined by the Frankfort Optimist
Club in presenting “Breakfast with Patrick Henry Hughes” at
10 a.m. at the Capital Plaza Hotel. Hughes is a University of Louisville
Trumpeter, speaker and author of “I Am Potential.”
Several author-related events precede the Book Fair. At noon Friday,
Nov. 14, “Lunch and Conversation with Author Joan Medlicott”
will be held at the Frankfort Convention Center. Tickets are $15 and
can be purchased through Joseph Beth Booksellers. A boxed lunch will
be provided.
At 4 p.m. Friday, author Bobbie Hinman will appear at the Paul Sawyier
Public Library for a presentation of “Fairies and Magic and Books-Oh,
my!” Hinman is the author of “The Knot Fairy” and “The
Sock Fairy.” Attendees are encouraged to wear their favorite costume
or pajamas, and mismatched socks.
Authors must be invited to attend the Kentucky Book Fair, said Crowe.
Inclusion is a juried process by a volunteer author selection committee,
which reviews more than 400 submissions each year.
Tincher was lucky enough to have been one of the authors chosen to attend
this event.
“I was very nervous and excited to send them a copy of the manuscript,”
she said. “ ‘Afterthoughts’ was still unpublished at
the time. It is a real honor to have been selected and I am very excited
about being there in November.”
Louisville author Rick Bell attended the 2007 Kentucky Book Fair and
said, “There is a very positive energy in the room since you are
surrounded by book-lovers and readers.” In one day Bell sold 30
to 35 copies of his book, “The Great Flood of 1937.” The book
had been on the market for seven months prior to the book fair.
“One of the aspects I enjoyed most was catching up with some of
the other writers, many of whom I knew from Journalism School at the
University of Kentucky during the 1960s,” said Bell. The book fair
presents authors with a much wider audience than they might normally
have, he said.
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Prospect
author Lynn |
“It was a pleasure to meet other authors and the
remarkably large audience, which seemed to be constantly in motion,”
he said. Book fair organizers only feature authors in the year their
work is published, which Bell viewed as an incentive to get busy writing
his next book. “I would love to experience the Kentucky Book Fair
as an author again.”
Many new authors “now contact us based on the glowing reports from
their colleagues or publishers,” said Sherrard.
“And for those we do invite as “celebrity authors,” it’s
relatively easy for them to check with their colleagues and friends
to find out that the Kentucky Book Fair really is ‘the place to
be’ for excellent book sales.”
An estimated crowd of up to 3,000 people attended the 2006 Kentucky
Book Fair, said Crowe. “I believe that the personal interaction
between the author and the patron is what drives our event.”
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Photo
courtesy of the Kentucky Book Fair Conservative
TV |
Sherrard agreed with Crowe that “the author-patron
interaction is what draws many people to the evenh a childhood fascination
with an early American frontiersman legend carried itself into adulthood
for Morgan. Fueling this intrigue was the fact that Morgan’s father
said he was related to Boone through Boone’s mother’s family,
the Morgans.
“A lot has been written about Boone, but earlier biographers had
made a number of mistakes,” said Morgan. These included tales of
15 tons of ginseng Boone and his sons supposedly dug in 1788, his surveying
abilities, and the myth that one of Boone’s children was fathered
by one of his brothers.
A point he found highly relevant to a biography about Boone was the
fact that “no previous historians had noticed that Boone was a
Freemason, which was significant in the era of the American Revolution.
Freemasonry was a part of the Revolutionary spirit,” he said.
It took Morgan four years to write this biography. His primary source
documents included the Draper Collection housed at the Wisconsin Historical
Society, the archives of the Kentucky Historical Society at Frankfort,
The Filson Club in Louisville, the Henderson Papers at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Durrett Collection at the University
of Chicago, The Boone Family files at the Missouri Historical Society
in St. Louis, among many others. He also used anthropological studies
of the Shawnee Indians that “no Boone scholars seemed to have paid
any attention to,” he said.
Morgan said he learned a lot first hand from Kentucky writers and fellow
book fair attendees, Neal O. Hammon and Richard Taylor. As a special
bonus to his research, Morgan was able to spend an afternoon with the
late author and historian Dr. Thomas Clark a few months before his death.
They discussed the history of land in Kentucky.
Morgan will also appear at the Paul Sawyier Public Library in Frankfort
at 1:30 p.m. on the same day as the Book Fair. He will join Michael
P. Spradlin, author of “Daniel Boone’s Great Escape,”
and Meredith Mason Brown, author of “Frontiersman-Daniel Boone
and the Making of America,” for presentations about “The Life
and Times of Daniel Boone.”
The Kentucky Historical Society will be collaborating with the Kentucky
Book Fair to host a day of free symposiums titled, “A Day with
Lincoln.” Selected authors will discuss their works about Lincoln
at 9:15 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. James L. Swanson, author of “Manhunt,”
will be the featured speaker for a noon luncheon. There is a fee to
attend this luncheon.
• For more information about the Kentucky Book Fair, contact Connie Crowe at (502) 564-8300, ext. 297 or visit: www.kybookfair.org.