“We've never had that sort of competitive spirit that I hear from my colleagues from other states. There's always a writer, be they famous or burgeoning in Kentucky, that is willing to give you a hand up, and to comment on your work, and to refer a publisher to you or read a poem or whatever it takes.” — Crystal Wilkinson
Reading, Writing and Recognition: The KY Writers Hall of Fame
Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame inductees Crystal Wilkinson and Frank X Walker. (Photos by Tom Eblen)
The Carnegie Center's Tom Eblen with Kentucky Hall of Fame inductees Crystal Wilkinson and Frank X Walker. You can read along as you listen to the interview, provided by WEKU's Eastern Standard. The transcript has been edited for textual clarity and flow. Photos by Tom Eblen.
Tom: The Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame will honor this year's inductees at a ceremony, March 10, at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington. All four living inductees plan to be there — playwright Naomi Wallace, a Louisville native who now lives in England, two founding members of the Affrilachian Poets, Frank X Walker and Crystal Wilkinson and Appalachian historian Ron Eller. Also inducted will be the late David Dick, a former CBS News correspondent, who in retirement wrote 11 books plus three more with his wife, Lalie Dick, mostly about their shared love for Kentucky.
Two of those inductees are with us today. Frank X Walker and Crystal Wilkinson are both professors of creative writing at the University of Kentucky and former Kentucky Poets Laureate. Walker, who was born and raised in Danville, recently published his 14th book, “Load in Nine Times,” a moving collection of historical poetry based on the lives of Black Kentuckians during the Civil War era.
Wilkinson, a Casey County native, last year published her fifth book, “Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks.” It became a national bestseller and made several lists of the best books of 2024. Crystal and Frank, welcome to Eastern Standard.
Crystal: Thanks for having us.
Frank: Yes, yes. Great to be here.
Tom: First of all, what does it mean to each of you to be added to the Hall of Fame?
Crystal: Well, anyone who knows me knows that everything makes me cry, so this was another thing. And I don't mean that lightly. I mean, I'm deeply moved, especially by things relating to home. And I think having lived in Kentucky all my life and seeing so many of our great writers become Poets Laureate, that was a milestone for me and also made me cry because I can remember standing in line and Frank elbowing me, saying, "Go up and talk to him." And both Wendell Berry and Mr. Still being at the table in Frankfort, I think, at the book fair and Frank elbowing me and saying, "Go on."
And so, to go from those beginning moments to being Poet Laureate was sort of a penultimate. And then, of course, this too, having known so many writers that have been named, many of them my heroes and “sheroes” that have been named to the Hall of Fame, is really special.
Frank X Walker (Photo by Tom Eblen)
Tom: And what about you, Frank?
Frank: Yeah. I mean, I'm just enjoying all of Crystal's responses, but I didn't cry when I heard about it, but I'm still trying to process. It's been kind of a surreal experience for me because, on one hand, it feels like, "I just started writing. How is this possible?" And then on the other hand, it's like, "Wow, I've been writing that long over now." So, somewhere between just trying to process what it means time wise. But you know, all that aside, it feels extra special because of this particular class. I knew David Dick and I know Ron Eller, and then my sister, Crystal, to be able to share this moment with her, it just makes it even more special. Maybe I cried that evening, I don't know.
Tom: Oh, we'll see. You mentioned that, you know, your sister… you all have kind of really come up in Kentucky literature together in a lot of ways, and both of your writing so much centers on the Black experience in Kentucky, which is often not very well known outside of the state, and sometimes not within the state. How did you both come to focus on that?
Crystal: Well, I always find this story of me and Frank very interesting because we never knew each other through grade school or high school, even though we're just a year — he's a year older. Like siblings do, I have to rub a penny in every chance I get. But we didn't know one another during those years. So, it was during both of our formative years as writers that we got to know each other. And that's when we found out that we grew up in towns adjacent to each other and had sort of some mirroring experiences…that even our first cousins had married each other and all of those kinds of things. So that, as Frank said, has made it even more special because I think our experiences, even though I was very, very country and Frank was in town — from where I'm from, living in Danville, we're downtown.
Tom: Danville is a big city.
Crystal: Yeah. Our experience, I think, mirrored one another as shy, bookish kids, who were all about writing and reading, and being able to advance in that way.
And like I said, it wasn't until years and years later through the Affrilachian poets that we actually met. But I think our experiences, as beginning writers, matched up even since of a — I think we were both journalists at one point in our lives.
Crystal Wilkinson (Photo by Carsen Bryant)
Frank: Yeah. Now, I was gonna say, yes, all of that. I love that synchronicity. And at the same time, I think about — I mean, to answer the question, I don't think I was thinking about my writing being specifically about a Black story or Black families. I was just writing about my family and what I knew in the way that I could. But what really pushed me into really focusing on Kentucky stories and Black Kentucky stories was traveling outside of Kentucky and meeting people who were shocked that there were Black people in Kentucky.
And I was just stunned by the idea that somebody on the college campus close to a degree would ask me that question. And the question was, "Are there other Black people in Kentucky?" And my mouth just fell open. And I pretended to count them in that moment. And this person was waiting for me to get to the final number. But it just seemed so surreal to me. And it really, I think, kind of helped focus my work a little bit, because I recognized that that person was not an anomaly, that there were a lot of other people who, because of mass media's representation of Kentucky and the region, never saw people of color.
I felt like I had a responsibility to tell my people's stories or help tell it. And I think I'm still there. I mean, there's still so many more stories to be told and ways to tell them. That's the part that makes me feel like a teenager just starting. And I used to always say that when I grow up, I'm going to be a filmmaker and make the same stories.
Clockwise from upper left: Naomi Wallace, Lalie Dick, David Dick, Ron Eller
Tom: What is it about Kentucky, do you think, that really grows so many great writers?
Crystal: I think one of the things is the land and the spirit of land itself and the people. I didn't know how important they were, but I've always been an eavesdropper and a storyteller. Observing people in church and observing my family and all of the mannerisms and thinking, not knowing that that was perhaps unique to other people, and had that sort of experience like Frank had of the aha moment of "Oh, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to hold my people — these particular people, and their complexity, and their nuance — up to the light for others to see, so that we're not invisible." And I think that, adjacent to that, what makes writers blossom and grow in Kentucky, is the generosity of other writers.
Frank: Absolutely.
Crystal: I wasn't aware of it at the time when I was standing in that line and Frank was elbowing me like, "Go on up there." Like I said, it was Wendell Berry, it was George Ella Lyon, it was all of those people. And I didn't realize at the time how accessible they were. Like these were famous writers from Kentucky that would come up and give you a nod. I remember almost fainting when I read somewhere one time and Wendell walked up and remembered lines from the story I read and said, "You know, I liked that. That was good."
Tom: Wow.
Crystal: And me just being like, "Oh." But I think that kind of generosity from other writers, we've never had that sort of competitive spirit that I hear from my colleagues from other states. There's always a writer, be they famous or burgeoning in Kentucky, that is willing to give you a hand up, and to comment on your work, and to refer a publisher to you or read a poem or whatever it takes. So, I think that that's been a big part of it too.
Tom: Yeah.
Frank: For sure. Or give you your first book deal. I think that if not for Gurney Norman and his wife, Nyoka, Affrilachian would not have ever existed. And I've been pushed into that world of seeing my work in print and learning to love that feeling and make it to this this point in my "career."
Tom: What are you all working on now? I know when I talked to you last year, you each had a long list of projects you were hoping to get to. What are you writing now?
Crystal: I'm working on a memoir about my mother and mental illness, Black women and mental illness, and particularly, again, my mother. It's a memoir, and it's called “Heartsick” and will be out with Crown Publishing in 2026.
Tom: What about you, Frank?
Frank: She's definitely closer to finish than I am. I'm working on two things, a set of short stories inspired by Gurney Norman's “Kinfolk” and another collection of historical poems that deal with a hundred years of racism in America, but through the lenses of leisure and golf that kind of focuses on amateur Black golf in the United States, not so much in Kentucky because there wasn't much in Kentucky, but everywhere else, especially in the South it was happening, and happening in and around the civil rights era and reaching all the way back into the 1800s.
The story goes back way before Tiger Woods. A lot of people only think of Tiger as the burgeoning of Black golf. But you know, I think the hundred years I'm focusing on actually ends with Tiger was going pro. So, that 100 years prior to Tiger Woods gave birth to a whole era of activity in America that really has been a fascinating story to research and to write about.
Tom: That's great. I look forward to reading both of those. And with us today has been Crystal Wilkinson and Frank X Walker, two of the five latest inductees in the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. Come see them accept their awards on March 10 at 7 p.m. at the Kentucky Theatre in downtown Lexington. The ceremony is free and open to the public. No tickets required. Thanks for being with us, Frank and Crystal.
Crystal: Thank you.
Frank: Thank you.
(Note: Photo of Naomi Wallace by Gregory Costanzo)