The University of Louisville Kentucky Author Forum, a non-profit, nationally-recognized literary event, is dedicated to offering renowned authors and interviewers to the Louisville community. Their candid, uninterrupted hour of conversation is taped by Kentucky's public television for national distribution.

The Kentucky Author Forum series is produced by Mary Moss Greenebaum, with Associate Producer Melissa Bernstrom, and is sponsored by the University of Louisville, Brown-Forman and The Humana Foundation.

Founder and Producer, Mary Moss Greenebaum, merged the concept of a live, one-of-kind conversation, between a renowned author and a carefully chosen interviewer, with the remarkable resources which Louisville and Kentucky had to offer in support of this cultural program.

Each author guest spends time on the University of Louisville campus, speaking with students and faculty; some teach Master Classes, some conduct press conferences, others engage in lively classroom question and answer sessions. These visits offer the campus community many truly unique opportunities for interaction with some of the most significant minds of our time.

The Courier-Journal's Forum Page Editor and Book Editor, Keith Runyon, acts as Master of Ceremonies for the evening Author Forum interviews, bringing a consistent and in-depth knowledge of books and authors to the planning. Each author and interviewer also spends time at a specially convened Courier-Journal Editorial meeting. The Courier's access to Forum authors and interviewers routinely yields book reviews and feature stories.

The staging of each event at The Kentucky Center is skillfully designed by Bittners Designing for the way you live. The set recreates a handsome library room, each one unique. Author and interviewer are seated in traditional leather desk chairs, provided by Office Furniture USA in Louisville, and face each other across an antique partner's desk. Under the artistic eye of Bittners, surrounding furnishings create a one-of-a-kind intimate mood for this national dialogue.

Author guests and interviewers visit WFPL: Louisville's NPR News Station. Most frequently, guests are interviewed by award-winning host Julie Kredens for the hour-long, live call-in program "State of Affairs." The hour-long evening interview is also taped by WFPL, and archived Author Forum interviews can be found here.

Kentucky's KET, the largest PBS member broadcaster in the country, servicing all of Kentucky and parts of seven surrounding states, tapes each Forum, with the audience of more than 600 attending. The conversations air first regionally and are then distributed to PBS affiliates nationwide for optional airing under the title "A Conversation with...." Archives of select programs can be viewed here. KET also has DVDs of past Forum interviews available for purchase at 1-800-945-9167.

Each author visit includes book sales and signings, under the auspices of Louisville's oldest independent bookstore, Carmichael's. The bookstore first opened its doors in Louisville in 1978.

Louisville Free Public Library branches schedule showings of the taped interviews, free-of-charge, in the weeks following the live event. The Library also maintains a complete set of the interviews for Library loan.

The open book logo, seen at the top of the page, was created for Kentucky Author Forum by internationally acclaimed designer, Julius Friedman. The Author Forum offices were designed by architects Roberto de Leon and Ross Primer.