//podcastplus.net/feed/kick-ass-kentucky-women-writers~da6eb552 From Pine Mountain to the New Madrid Fault and every pocket of beautiful land in between, each month, we talk to one of the many Kick-Ass Kentucky Women Writers you should know and love. Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:36:34 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/mkd8u7/Savannah_final.mp3 Savannah Sipple kicks ass…and Jesus is her homeboy. A writer from Beattyville, Savannah’s poems and short stories have recently been published in Appalachian Heritage , The Pikeville Review , Southern Indiana Review , Still: The Journal . Savannah’s work also appears in the anthologies Appalachia Now: Short Stories of Contemporary Appalachia from Bottom Dog Press , and in If You Can Hear This: Poems in Protest of an American Inauguration , which is fresh off the presses from Sibling Rivalry Press . Savannah is also the co-owner of Brier Books, Lexington’s newest independent bookseller. She’s recently finished a full-length poetry collection that fascinates me in its complexities around love and pain, two things inextricably intertwined. Whether the love in question is from a victim of domestic violence to their abuser or a young queer woman learning to love herself without losing faith, there is no easy answer for the mind or the heart in these poems. It’s the complex relat... Fri, 30 Jun 2017 16:56:24 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/mkd8u7/Savannah_final.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/mkd8u7/Savannah_final.mp3 Savannah Sipple kicks ass…and Jesus is her homeboy. A writer from Beattyville, Savannah’s poems and short stories have recently been published in Appalachian Heritage , The Pikeville Review, Southern Indiana Review , Still: The Journal . Savannah’s work also appears in the anthologies Appalachia Now: Short Stories of Contemporary Appalachia from Bottom Dog Press , and in If You Can Hear This: Poems in Protest of an American Inauguration , which is fresh off the presses from Sibling Rivalry Press . Savannah is also the co-owner of Brier Books, Lexington’s newest independent bookseller. She’s recently finished a full-length poetry collection that fascinates me in its complexities around love and pain, two things inextricably intertwined. Whether the love in question is from a victim of domestic violence to their abuser or a young queer woman learning to love herself without losing faith, there is no easy answer for the mind or the heart in these poems. It’s the complex relationshi... Fri, 30 Jun 2017 16:56:24 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/mkd8u7/Savannah_final.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/ydndjf/KNicoleWilson_mixdown.mp3 K. Nicole Wilson kicks ass…and can knock a baseball or a rhyme out of the park. A graduate of the Spalding MFA in Writing program, her work has been published in Marginalia and Open Windows,  and often appears on the Accents Publishing Blog . Her poems have also been anthologized in Small Batch: an anthology of bourbon poetry , Circe’s Lament: Anthology of Wild Women Poetry , and This Wretched Vessel and Her Limestone Bones , anthologies for Lexington Poetry Month. K. Nicole’s first poetry collection, This Temple , was published by Finishing Line Press in September of 2016. A poet and painter who can pack a punch like Muhammed Ali when she wields words or a paint brush, K. Nicole’s known as “The Sports Poet” because her verse often celebrates her fierce passion for sports—especially baseball and Kentucky basketball. But Wilson writes about more than just a ball flying across the outfield or a full-court press. She says that all of her work is about love because... Wed, 31 May 2017 18:55:35 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/ydndjf/KNicoleWilson_mixdown.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/ydndjf/KNicoleWilson_mixdown.mp3 K. Nicole Wilson kicks ass…and can knock a baseball or a rhyme out of the park. A graduate of the Spalding MFA in Writing program, her work has been published in Marginalia and Open Windows, and often appears on the Accents Publishing Blog . Her poems have also been anthologized in Small Batch: an anthology of bourbon poetry , Circe’s Lament: Anthology of Wild Women Poetry , and This Wretched Vessel and Her Limestone Bones , anthologies for Lexington Poetry Month. K. Nicole’s first poetry collection, This Temple, was published by Finishing Line Press in September of 2016. A poet and painter who can pack a punch like Muhammed Ali when she wields words or a paint brush, K. Nicole’s known as “The Sports Poet” because her verse often celebrates her fierce passion for sports—especially baseball and Kentucky basketball. But Wilson writes about more than just a ball flying across the outfield or a full-court press. She says that all of her work is about love because love is what’s w... Wed, 31 May 2017 18:55:35 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/ydndjf/KNicoleWilson_mixdown.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/kf9xin/Interview_Misty_Skaggs_mixdown.mp3 Misty Marie Rae Skaggs kicks ass…and tells it like it is. Misty and I first met at a reading put on by the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative during the 2013 Appalachian Studies Association. She was reading from her chapbook Prescription Panes , which deals with the opioid epidemic in Kentucky. Direct and unflinching, Misty exposed the world beyond the statistical headlines about addiction and incarceration rates, a place where people we love fall away from us in a flash of hot lightning or by fading into oblivion over and over again until they disappear. I know this dance with death. Because I come from Appalachian Ohio, just across the river from Huntington, WV, where a New York Times reporter rode along with the first responders on 27 overdoses in a single day —and it wasn’t an outlier. Because my childhood spent watching people drink themselves to death suddenly felt small compared to the desperate, strung-out people that make it unsafe for my niece and nephews to go to the park. B... Fri, 28 Apr 2017 15:04:35 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/kf9xin/Interview_Misty_Skaggs_mixdown.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/kf9xin/Interview_Misty_Skaggs_mixdown.mp3 Misty Marie Rae Skaggs kicks ass…and tells it like it is. Misty and I first met at a reading put on by the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative during the 2013 Appalachian Studies Association. She was reading from her chapbook Prescription Panes, which deals with the opioid epidemic in Kentucky. Direct and unflinching, Misty exposed the world beyond the statistical headlines about addiction and incarceration rates, a place where people we love fall away from us in a flash of hot lightning or by fading into oblivion over and over again until they disappear. I know this dance with death. Because I come from Appalachian Ohio, just across the river from Huntington, WV, where a New York Times reporter rode along with the first responders on 27 overdoses in a single day —and it wasn’t an outlier. Because my childhood spent watching people drink themselves to death suddenly felt small compared to the desperate, strung-out people that make it unsafe for my niece and nephews to go to the park. Because I... Fri, 28 Apr 2017 15:04:35 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/kf9xin/Interview_Misty_Skaggs_mixdown.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/itggs7/Interview_with_Cynthia_finalcut.mp3 Cynthia Ellingsen kicks ass…and makes people laugh. A contemporary women’s fiction writer with a flare for funny situations, snappy dialogue, and characters with abundant picadillos, Cynthia’s work makes for a relaxing break from reality. Tuck one of her books into your bag before you head out to the beach, picnic blanket, or hammock, and prepare to giggle your way through the antics. Her first book, The Whole Package , focuses on three estranged friends who find their way back together when their lives take a turn for the worse. Doris, the stay-at-home mom, fights anxiety when her husband buys a motorcycle and takes off cross-country to “find himself”; Cheryl, the take-charge corporate dealer, wants revenge after being fired by an unscrupulous boss; and Jackie, the free-spirited painter and wealthy widow, struggles to maintain her fabulous façade despite being bankrupt and homeless. After a night of drinking lands them at a men’s strip club, the three decide to open a restaurant—... Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:43:31 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/itggs7/Interview_with_Cynthia_finalcut.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/itggs7/Interview_with_Cynthia_finalcut.mp3 Cynthia Ellingsen kicks ass…and makes people laugh. A contemporary women’s fiction writer with a flare for funny situations, snappy dialogue, and characters with abundant picadillos, Cynthia’s work makes for a relaxing break from reality. Tuck one of her books into your bag before you head out to the beach, picnic blanket, or hammock, and prepare to giggle your way through the antics. Her first book, The Whole Package , focuses on three estranged friends who find their way back together when their lives take a turn for the worse. Doris, the stay-at-home mom, fights anxiety when her husband buys a motorcycle and takes off cross-country to “find himself”; Cheryl, the take-charge corporate dealer, wants revenge after being fired by an unscrupulous boss; and Jackie, the free-spirited painter and wealthy widow, struggles to maintain her fabulous façade despite being bankrupt and homeless. After a night of drinking lands them at a men’s strip club, the three decide to open a restaurant—like H... Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:43:31 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/itggs7/Interview_with_Cynthia_finalcut.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/s5az9n/Interview_with_Crystal-finalcut_mixdown.mp3 Crystal Wilkinson kicks ass. …and wins awards for it. Her first collection of stories, Blackberries, Blackberries , received the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing ; her second, Water Street , which was a finalist for both The Orange Prize for Fiction and The Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. Crystal’s latest book, The Birds of Opulence , just received the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence , the Weatherford Award for Fiction , and the Judy Gaines Young Book Award . She is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets , a professor in Spalding University’s Low Residency MFA program, and the Appalachian Writer-in-Residence at Berea College . Crystal is also the co-owner of The Wild Fig Books and Coffee , along with her partner Ron Davis. I read Blackberries just after my mother died in 2001, when I was trudging through my one and only Indianapolis winter. I contemplating a move to Kentucky—where I hadn’t ... Sat, 04 Mar 2017 18:38:17 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/s5az9n/Interview_with_Crystal-finalcut_mixdown.mp3 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/s5az9n/Interview_with_Crystal-finalcut_mixdown.mp3 Crystal Wilkinson kicks ass. …and wins awards for it. Her first collection of stories, Blackberries, Blackberries, received the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing ; her second, Water Street, which was a finalist for both The Orange Prize for Fiction and The Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. Crystal’s latest book, The Birds of Opulence, just received the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence , the Weatherford Award for Fiction , and the Judy Gaines Young Book Award . She is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets , a professor in Spalding University’s Low Residency MFA program, and the Appalachian Writer-in-Residence at Berea College . Crystal is also the co-owner of The Wild Fig Books and Coffee , along with her partner Ron Davis. I read Blackberries just after my mother died in 2001, when I was trudging through my one and only Indianapolis winter. I contemplating a move to Kentucky—where I hadn’t lived since I was in the first grade—and I wanted to see what kin... Sat, 04 Mar 2017 18:38:17 +0000 https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/s5az9n/Interview_with_Crystal-finalcut_mixdown.mp3