Kentucky Poet Laureate Kathleen Driskell will speak about “Making a Writing Life” for an ARTalk program at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, at the Janice Mason Art Museum in Cadiz.
Driskell will discuss “how everyone can make a writing life” and will read from her work, event organizers said in a press release.
The presentation is free to attend. The museum is located at 71 Main St. in downtown Cadiz.
An Oldham County native, Driskell has said her writing has “deep Kentucky roots.” She is a poet and essayist and chairs the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University in Louisville.
Driskell has written six poetry collections, including “Goat-Footed Gods,” “Blue Etiquette: Poems,” “Next Door to the Dead” and “Seed Across Snow.”
She is the recipient of several grants and awards, including a 2024 Pushcart Prize for “Church of the Goat Man,” an essay published in River Teeth Literary Journal.
Gov. Andy Beshear appointed Driskell the state poet laureate in 2025. At a press conference to announce her appointment, Driskell spoke about the talent of Kentucky writers.
“Here in the Commonwealth, writing is flourishing in a way that can rival any other state in America,” she said. “Writers and readers are working every day across the state to support and amplify what it means to be a Kentuckian in all our shapes and colors. The world of Kentucky letters is as various as our state’s landscapes and beautifully diverse Kentuckians who populate those hills, hollers, glades, plateaus and prairie.”
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
