Join author Linda LaPinta as we discuss her new book Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers: Three Centuries of Creativity, Community, and Commerce. As LaPinta says, we’ll consider quilts “through the lens of Kentucky history, women’s history, social history, the history of race relations, gateways to our past and doorways to our current state.” Special guests will include quilt artists “Sunshine Joe” Mallard and MJ Kinman, each of whom is featured in LaPinta’s book. They will share their quilting journeys and some of the stories behind their breathtaking quilts. Registrar and manager of collections engagement Tish Boyer will be on hand to show and discuss quilts from the Frazier Museum’s collection. Guests can purchase copies of Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers from the museum’s shop and the author will be available to sign them.

As we commemorate Bourbon Heritage Month, we’re getting back to where it all started with the Neeley Family Distillery and moonshine. Lead distiller Royce Neeley says it started more than one hundred years ago with his great grandpa Leonard’s recipe, known throughout Eastern Kentucky as some of the best. We’ll sip on their authentic Kentucky moonshine and hear the stories of the now “legal” family business, which has operated in Sparta, Kentucky, since 2015. There will be some show and tell with a still busted up by legendary Kentucky Agent “Big Six” Henderson and the family who found it. Kentucky author Chris Skates shares his family’s legacy story detailed in his new book Moonshine over Georgia. Finally, we’ll learn about the partnership between Neeley and Jackie Zykan as we sip on Hidden Barn Bourbon and learn how that name ties into the legend of moonshine.

Get ready for a dose of inspiration from author, blogger, and Louisvillian Jenny Smith.

It was more than thirty years ago, at the age of sixteen, she suffered a spinal cord injury while practicing gymnastics, leaving her paralyzed from the neck down.

Her book Live the Impossible: How a Wheelchair Has Taken Me Places I Never Dared to Imagine takes you on her journey of overcoming adversity as a quadriplegic.

She has traveled overseas to provide wheelchairs to developing countries, she has become an avid rower, but perhaps most importantly she has taught us all to never give up.

Join us as Jenny Smith shares her journey and lessons for all of us to live a full and active life.

Louisville author and podcaster Jermaine Fowler joins us to discuss and sign copies of his book The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth. He’ll also answer a few questions from both Rachel Platt and you, our audience.

Fowler’s book recently made the New York Times Best Sellers list, and Vanity Fair says his passion for his material is palpable.

Fowler himself will tell you his passion as a storyteller is sharing untold stories in history.

We are commemorating Elvis’s birthday with local author Alanna Nash, who has spent forty-five years writing about the King in four books and dozens of articles.

She’ll discuss one of her books, The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley, which was published in 2003 but sold out on Amazon following the release of director Baz Luhrmann’s movie Elvis this past summer.

Join us as we explore the history and life of coal towns in Kentucky, from the early days to the present. We’ll travel through time to see how mining has shaped the Commonwealth, impacting the lives and communities across the state, from the early 1800s through today—and how its influence will continue in the future.

Steve Gardner—an engineer, owner, and manager of both mining operations and consulting firms who has also served on a volunteer mine rescue team—will be your tour guide. A specialist in natural resources and environmental issues, Gardner will bring the presentation to life with touchable artifacts and some take-home pieces. We will explore the evolution of technology in the mines as well as view artifacts from Mr. Gardner’s personal collection. This presentation coincides with the Frazier Book Club’s selection of Coal Miner’s Daughter by Loretta Lynn. The event is open to the public, free with the cost of admission or membership to the museum, in our Second Floor Classroom. No RSVP’s are necessary.

The Frazier Museum is showing The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia, a half-hour KET production that tells the courageous story of the women hired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) to travel on horseback to deliver library books and magazines to people in Eastern Kentucky, braving creeks, mountains, and inclement weather along the way.

The showing coincides with the Frazier Book Club’s selection of The Book Woman’s Daughter by author Kim Michele Richardson.

The showing will be part of our Book Club experience, but will be open to the public, free with the cost of admission or membership to the museum