The public is invited to attend the 2025 Writers’ Day activities in Frankfort on April 24. Kentucky Writers’ Day is an annual celebration on or around the birthday of Kentucky writer Robert Penn Warren, the first United States Poet Laureate. The Writers’ Day celebration was established in 1990, and poets laureate are inducted in odd-numbered years.
This year’s Kentucky Writers’ Day and Poet Laureate Induction Ceremony will be held on Thursday, April 24, at 10 a.m. Eastern in the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort. A public reception will follow.
This year’s Writers’ Day ceremony will include readings by the new 2025-2026 Kentucky Poet Laureate Kathleen Driskell, 2023-2024 poet laureate Silas House, former poets laureate, and the 2024 Kentucky Youth Poet Laureate Maira Faisal, a junior at Northern Kentucky University.
Following the Writers’ Day event, the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort will host a Kentucky Poet Laureate reading beginning at 2 p.m. The event will feature readings by Kathleen Driskell, Silas House, and former poets laureate Jeff Worley, George Ella Lyon, Frank X Walker, Maureen Morehead, Sena Jeter Naslund, Joe Survant, and Richard Taylor.
Both events are free and open to the public.