SOKY Book Fest

Authors Attending

• ADAMS, MARK WAYNE

• ALLEN, NANCY KELLY

• APPLE, LINDSEY

• ASHER, BRAD

MARK WAYNE ADAMS

Book Title: Jilli, That's Silly!

Book Description:

Jilli Wallaby was always doing silly things! And her mom was always letting her know. “Jilli, That’s Silly!” she’d say—at least thirty times a day. Finally, Jilli’s mom realizes that Jilli isn’t being silly—she’s just being a girl!

Author Biography:

Mark Wayne Adams is an award-winning illustrator, publisher, and public speaker. A native Kentuckian, he moved to Central Florida in 1994 with a bachelor's of fine arts degree in drawing from Murray State University. He has worked as an Art Director, a Commercial Print Manager, and a Professional Illustrator. He self-published his first children’s book, Miss Mary’s Missing Book Bag, in 2004. Since then his illustrations and contributions have won numerous awards, including a Silver Award in the Florida Publisher's Association President's Awards, two Mom's Choice Gold Awards, a Gold Medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, two Silver medals in the Ben Franklin Awards, a Silver Medal in the IPPY Awards, and the accolades continue. Mark is excited about his first term on as a Florida Publishers Association Board Member. Though Mark resides in Florida, he travels extensively in his home state, Kentucky. He delivers an inspiring message to audiences of all ages wherever he travels. Mark Wayne Adams can be reached at: markwayneadams@mac.com or www.markwayneadams.com

NANCY KELLY ALLEN

Book Title: Spirit of Kentucky: Bourbon Cookbook

Book Description:

Spirit of Kentucky: Bourbon Cookbook has over 500 recipes. Each recipe has a note about the history of the food or information about an ingredient. Learn how the Hot Brown and Chess Pie got their names. You can enjoy the appealing, rich flavor with several dashes of bourbon or savor the subtle, delicious taste with a simple dash or two, neither of which will leave you tipsy.

Author Biography:

Nancy Kelly Allen won the 2005 Book of the Year in Children’s Literature from the Appalachian Writers Association. More recently, another one of her twenty-three picture books was selected to represent Kentucky in the 2010 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. One book per state is selected. All that writing made her hungry so she wrote a bourbon cookbook to celebrate her home state of Kentucky.

LINDSEY APPLE

Book Title: The Family Legacy of Henry Clay: In the Shadow of a Kentucky Patriarch

Book Description:

Henry Clay has been the subject of many biographies, but biographers discuss his family only as an appendage to his life. This book looks at Clay through the eyes of his descendants, revealing both the impact of family upon him and his enduring impact upon the Clay family. A model for future generations he left a legacy that was both a gift and a burden. The Clays suffered tremendous tragedies as America's history unfolded, but they also made significant contributions. Scholars have claimed that no Clay filled the patriarch's shoes, but leadership is required outside Washington's beltway, and the Clays provided that leadership at state and local level, in business, in philanthropy, and in military service. Spanning a broad spectrum of American life, the book treats the family response to civil war, reconstruction, race relations, and gender stereotypes.

Author Biography:

Lindsey Apple served in the history department at Georgetown College from 1970 to 2004 chairing it from 1988. He previously published a biography of a great granddaughter of Henry Clay titled Cautious Rebel: A Biography of Susan Clay Sawitzky. He has also published numerous journal and encyclopedia articles on topics in Kentucky history. He serves on the Georgetown-Scott County Museum Board and on the board of Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate.

BRAD ASHER

Book Title: Cecelia and Fanny: The Remarkable Friendship Between and Escaped Slave and her Former Mistress

Book Description:

Cecilia was a fifteen-year-old slave when she accompanied her mistress, Frances "Fanny" Thurston, on a trip to Niagara Falls in 1846. Minutes from Canada, Cecelia faced a fateful decision. Flee in a rowboat across the Niagara River to freedom? Or return with her mistress to Kentucky, to the only life she had ever known, where her mother and brother remained enslaved? Cecelia made the bold decision to escape, to endure separation from her family in order to begin life anew as a free woman in Canada.

Yet the separation gnawed at her. So in the 1850's she opened a correspondence with Fanny. Fanny's return letters, preserved in Louisville archives for a century, document the extraordinary link between two urban families over several decades. Cecelia and Fanny is a fascinating look at race relations in mid-nineteenth-century Louisville, Kentucky, focusing on the experiences of these two women during the seismic social upheaval wrought by the emancipation of four million African Americans.

Author Biography:

Brad Asher is an independent scholar and writer. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. He is the author of two previous works of history: On-the-Road Histories Kentucky (Interlink Press) and Beyond the Reservation: Indians, Settlers, and the Law in Washington Territory, 1853-1889 (University of Oklahoma Press). He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife and two children.

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