The InKY Reading Series: good literature and music in Louisville, Kentucky
InKY (like Rorschach? like the smudgy blots southpaws get when they write?) is grounded in the Kentuckiana region, that weird space where the South and Midwest collide, where voices are tinged with bourbon and Pabst Blue Ribbon, and where strip malls are just as sacred as coal mines.
Our mission is to promote excellent literature through live performances by established and emerging writers from the Kentuckiana region and beyond. We showcase accomplished, published career poets and writers as well as up-and-coming talent through an ecumenical approach to style, genre, and affiliation. By offering open mic opportunities, we hope to make the literary community more inclusive and participatory.
The InKY Reading Series is a project of InKY, Inc., a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization located in Louisville, Ky.
InKY's inaugural show was on February 13, 2004, directed by K. Nicole Wilson, Pam Steele, and Erin Keane and featuring 15 poets and musicians. Since then, we've been on stage at the Rudyard Kipling on the second Friday of every month. Our 2006 season will be our first with a summer break, so there will be no June or July show.
Some of our past performers include Greg Pape, Silas House, Frank X Walker, Brigid Kaelin, and Bryan Hurst. InKY is now directed by Erin Keane, with lots of help from the people below.
Erin Keane (director and president, board of directors) is the author of The Gravity Soundtrack (WordFarm, 2007), a collection of poems. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in many magazines, including Spoon River Poetry Review, Velocity, Poems & Plays, New Southerner, Now & Then and Louisville Magazine. A graduate of the Spalding University MFA in Writing program, she teaches sophomores about Pop Music in American Literature at Bellarmine University and high school creative writing workshops for the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts.
Lynnell Edwards (associate director and vice president, board of directors) is the author of The Farmer's Daughter (Red Hen Press). Her work has appeared in Poets Against the War; Raising Our Voices: Oregon Poets Against the War; and numerous literary journals including: Poems & Plays, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, and Dos Passos Review. Her second collection of poetry, The Highwayman's Wife, will be released by Red Hen Press in 2007.
Beth Newberry (music coordinator and secretary, board of directors) has been a fan of InKY since its inception. A graduate of the MFA in Writing program at Spalding University, she has written about music, culture, and rural and urban living for Louisville Magazine (where she was previously associate editor), Sojourners, Now & Then, The Encyclopedia of Appalachia, and the literary journal The Crucible. She is associate editor of the book Spirit of Fire: Faith, Art and Action (Sojourners, 2003) and a graduate of Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC, and the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts, where she teaches high school creative writing workshops.
Dianna Ott (treasurer, board of directors) is Director of Creative Services in the Office of Communication at the national offices of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Louisville, Kentucky. She serves as managing editor and supervises a creative team of seven amazing people who are responsible for designing and producing www.pcusa.org. She holds the APR (Accredited in Public Relations) designation and is an active member of both the Public Relations Society of America and the Religion Communicators Council. A native of Eastern Kentucky, she was among the first group of young people who founded Appalshop, a media collective documenting and preserving Appalachian culture and tradition.
Martha Greenwald (member, board of directors) has published poems in the Threepenny Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, the Notre Dame Review, and many other journals and periodicals. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, she was the winner of the 2005 Dogwood Prize for Poetry.
Anne Marie Fowler (intern and ex-officio member, board of directors) is a doctoral learner studying trans-ethnic literature at The Union Institute & University. She holds an MFA in poetry (Spalding University) and her work has appeared in national and international journals, and in Coloring Book: An Eclectic Anthology of Fiction & Poetry by Multicultural Writers.
Pam Steele (director emeritus and ex-officio member, board of directors) is a past president of Fishtrap, an arts organization promoting writing in the West. Her poems have appeared in many places, including The Louisville Review, Riven, and a marquee in Corvallis, Oregon. Pam holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (poetry) from Spalding University. Her debut poetry collection, Paper Bird, is forthcoming from Ice River Press.
