Why is it important to bring women writers and readers together?
A. Well, for one, we’re the audience that reads these authors. And what we’ve found as we’ve done the festival is that there is a fairly large community of women who really do read…. and welcome the opportunity to talk to a writer whose work they’ve enjoyed reading. It’s interesting. We’ve kind of tapped into the book club market, too….groups of women who read and meet periodically to discuss books. They show up at the festival and they love meeting the writers. And the writers like to meet them. Q. What’s on tap for this year’s festival? A. The keynote speaker is Crystal Wilkinson. She’s an Affrilachian writer, poet and short story writer. She’s really capturing the rural traditions of African Americans in Appalachia, and is a member of the Affrilachian Poets — a new group which formed in Lexington in 1991. The voice most often associated with it is a male voice — Frank X Walker. But Crystal Wilkinson is a wonderful writer. Her first volume, the short story collection “Blackberries, B
