Crystal Wilkinson among new members chosen for Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame

Crystal Wilkinson, a former Kentucky poet laureate who spoke at the Hopkinsville memorial service for feminist author and icon bell books, is among five authors recently chosen for the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. 

A poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist and a creative writing professor at the University of Kentucky, Wilkinson, 62, is a Bush-Holbrook endowed professor and director of the Division of Creative Writing at UK. 

Wilkinson’s published books include a culinary memoir, “Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks,” published in 2023 by Potter/Penguin Random House. She also wrote “Perfect Black,” “The Birds of Opulence,” “Water Street” and “Blackberries, Blackberries.”

Speaking at the April 2, 2022, memorial service for Hopkinsville native Gloria Watkins (whose pen name was bell books), Wilkinson recalled how bell hooks influenced her writing career. Prior to meeting bells hooks in 1993, she had never heard such a powerful reflection of her own identity as a Black woman from Kentucky, she said.

“We were listening to bell that day the way that my family used to listen to country preachers back down home,” said Wilkinson, who grew up in Casey County. “Bell had this way of turning the concepts and ideology of feminism into brilliant common sense. We sat mesmerized. We were all empowered. I think we all came out of that room with our back straighter and we were ready to go out into the world to make a change.”

The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, a nonprofit in Lexington, is the home of the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. 

Hopkinsville native Ted Poston, the Dean of Black Journalists, was inducted in 2022. 

Joining Wilkinson in the 2025 class are:

• Naomi Wallace, 64, is the author of more than two dozen plays, including “One Flea Spare,” set in 17th century London, about a wealthy couple and two intruders who quarantined together during the bubonic plague. Raised on a Kentucky farm, her many awards include a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 1999.
• Frank X Walker, 63, was Kentucky’s first African American poet laureate and received the NAACP Image Award for Poetry in 2014. He is the author of 13 poetry collections, including “Load in Nine Times,” in which “he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers — including his own ancestors — who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.”
• The late David Dick, a CBS correspondent who wrote about his beloved Kentucky in books such as “Kentucky: A State of Mind,” “Rivers of Kentucky” and “Jesse Stuart — The Heritage.” Dick wrote 11 books on his own and three with his wife, Eulalia “Lalie” Dick. He died in 2010. 
• Ronald D. Eller, 76, a professor of history, he is regarded as the father of Appalachian studies. He served 15 years as director of the University of Kentucky’s Appalachian Center and was a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar. He is the author of “Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945” and “Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930,” and he has written more than 70 scholarly articles. 

The Carnegie Center will have the Hall of Fame induction ceremony at 7 p.m. on March 10 at the Kentucky Theatre in downtown Lexington, the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper reported. Admission is free.  

“The Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame was created to recognize Kentucky writers whose work reflects the character and culture of our commonwealth, and to educate Kentuckians about our state’s rich literary heritage,” the Carnegie Center states on its website. 

The members are chosen by committees of the Carnegie Center and the Kentucky Arts Council with input from well-known writers.