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

2008 November Kentucky Edition Cover

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. • Free admission • Information: (502) 564-8300, X-297 or visit www.kybookfair.org or email: kybookfair@ky.gov

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) • 10:30 a.m.: “The Prince of Frogtown,” presented by author Rick Bragg • Noon: “Who Knew! The Truth About C.S. Lewis And Narnia,” presented by author Devin Brown, through the sponsorship of Asbury College • 1:30 p.m.: “The Place To Be: Washington, CBS, And The Glory Days Of Television News,” presented by author Roger Mudd • 2:15 p.m.: Kentucky Humanities Council Chautauqua Performer Jim Sayer As Abraham Lincoln, “I, too am a Kentuckian.” • 3:15 p.m.: Tea with American Girl author Kathleen Ernst 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 • James L. Swanson luncheon on Nov. 15 at the Kentucky History Center (tentatively) noon to 2 p.m. • Patrick Henry Hughes breakfast at 10 a.m. Nov. 15 at the Hotel • There will be free events at the arena Nov. 15 at the History Center (absent Swanson) and at Paul Sawyier on Nov. 14-15. “The Life and Times of Daniel Boone” • Saturday, Nov. 15, at the Community Room at Paul Sawyier Public Library • 9:30 a.m.: Michael P. Spradlin, author of Daniel Boone’s Great Escape • 11 a.m.: Meredith Mason Brown, author of Frontiersman-Daniel Boone and the Making of America • 1:30 p.m.: Robert Morgan, author of Boone: A Biography

Note: The above listed authors will be signing their books at the Kentucky Book Fair, Frankfort Convention Center, at other times throughout the day. Morgan will be signing from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. only.

“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.

Prospect author Lynn Tincher will be among the authors at this year’s Book Fair in Frankfort, Ky.

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.
“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.”

Photo courtesy of the Kentucky Book Fair Conservative TV talk show pundit and author Robert Novak signs his book at last year’s Kentucky Book Fair. The one-day event gives readers a chance to meet authors and attend seminars.

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.