Kendra Winchester talks to Frank X Walker, the author of Load in Nine Times.

Things Mentioned

• Read Appalachia Newsletter

Books Mentioned

• A is for Affrilachia by Frank X Walker, Illustrated by upfromsumdirt
• Load in Nine Times by Frank X Walker
• The Big Smoke by Adian Matejka

Guest Info

The first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate, Frank X Walker is Professor of English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington where he founded pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture. He has published eleven collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of a Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride, which he adapted for stage. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker, a Danville native, coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets. A Cave Canem fellow, his honors also include a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry. His most recent collection is Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems.

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Music by Olexy from Pixabay