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An Afternoon with Wes Blake and Rick Childers

Join us for an author talk featuring two Kentucky authors - Wes Blake and Rick Childers! Both authors will discuss their careers, read sections from their books, and answer audience questions.

Wes Blake has been called a “writer to watch” by Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin, and SmokeLong Quarterly described his debut novel as an “utterly compelling read.” His Etchings Press Novella Prize-Winning book Pineville Trace was published by the University of Indianapolis’ Etchings Press in 2024 and was featured on Deep South Magazine’s Fall/Winter Reading List 2024-25. His novel, Antenna, was a finalist for the UNO Press Book Prize and Sundress Publications’ Open Reading Contest. His fiction and essays have been featured in Electric Literature, storySouth, Louisiana Literature Journal, Blood & Bourbon, Book of Matches, Jelly Bucket, and White Wall Review, among others, and he holds an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio. He studied writing under Gurney Norman, James Baker Hall, Julie Hensley, R. Dean Johnson—and very briefly under Denis Johnson. He lives in Nonesuch, Kentucky with his wife and cats, where they’ve planted over 120 trees. Learn more at wesblake.com.

Rick Childers is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in Limestone Journal, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Still: the Journal, Heartwood Literary Magazine, and the San Joaquin Review. Rick is from Eastern Kentucky where he lives with his wife Sydni and their two children. He also enjoys watching wrestling, reading paperbacks, and hunting ginseng. His novel TURKEYFOOT from Shotgun Honey was released in September 2024. You can learn more about Rick Childers here. 

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