2012 Presenters

Kim Addonizio has been called “one of our nation's most provocative and edgy poets.” Her latest books are Lucifer at the Starlite , recently a finalist for the Poets Prize and the Northern CA Book Award; and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within, both from W.W. Norton. Read more >

Tara Betts is the author of the book Arc and Hue, her debut collection on Aquarius Press/Willow Books. Tara is a lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. She is also a Cave Canem fellow. Read more >

Sallie Bingham published her first novel with Houghton Mifflin in 1961 and is the author of over ten books, most recently the short story collection Red Car (Sarabande, 2008). Her newest collection of stories is entitled Mending and will be published by Sarabande in October 2011. Read more >

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of four earlier novels and two short story collections. The Jane Austen Book Club spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Read more >

dream hampton has written about music, culture and politics for 20 years. Her articles and essays have appeared in The Village Voice, The Detroit News, Harper's Bazaar, Essence and a dozen anthologies most recently Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic, edited by Michael Eric Dyson. Read more >

Rebecca Gayle Howell writes place. Her poems and translations appear in Ninth Letter, Ecotone, 32 Poems, storySouth, Hayden's Ferry Review, Poetry Daily, and others. Read more >

Debra Gwartney is the author of Live Through This, a memoir published in 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awar. Read more >

Julia Johnson grew up in New Orleans. Her first book of poems, Naming the Afternoon, was published by the Louisiana State University Press in 2002 and was the winner of the Fellowship of Southern Writers' New Writing Award. Read more >

Kelly Link is the author of three collections of short stories, Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and Pretty Monsters. Read more >

Stella Parks graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 2002. She was recently named one of Food and Wine's best pastry chefs in America. She is the author of BraveTart. Read more >

Keynote speaker Ruth Reichl is a writer and editor who was the Editor in Chief of Gourmet Magazine for ten years until its closing in 2009. Before that she was the restaurant critic of the The New York Times, (1993-1999), and both the restaurant critic and food editor of the Los Angeles Times (1984-1993). As co-owner and cook of the collective restaurant The Swallow from 1974 to 1977, she played a part in the culinary revolution that took place in Berkeley, California. Read more >

Rona Roberts loved cooking and baking while she was growing up seven miles outside Monticello, Kentucky, in beautiful Wayne County. Her mother was a gifted, intuitive cook who thought HER mother was the best cook in the world, making meals out of not much, and making them delicious. Read more >

Naomi Wallace's work has been produced in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East and the United States. Her major plays include One Flea Spare, In the Heart of America, Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Things of Dry Hours and The Fever Chart: Three Short Visions of the Middle East.
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> View a listing of all past presenters of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference.