Morehead retiree's book wins literary award

MOREHEAD, Ky. — Morehead State University retiree Garry Barker’s latest book, “Kentucky Waltz,” recently won the 2008 Kentucky Literary Award for fiction presented by Western Kentucky University and the Southern Kentucky Book Fest.

“Kentucky Waltz,” a collection of short fiction, was published by Wind Publications in Nicholasville, Ky., in late 2007. It is Barker’s 10th published book, and will soon be followed by “Head of the Holler: Volume 1,” a collection of newspaper columns dating back to the late 1980s.

Barker was born in Otway, Ohio, in 1943 but grew up in Kentucky, and his family moved to Fleming County in 1946. He attended the Goddard, Hillsboro and Tilton schools before graduating from Fleming County High School in 1961. Barker attended

Berea College while working summers at the Flemingsburg Lumber Company and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1965.

He has been an arts administrator in Asheville, N.C., and in Berea and Morehead and retired from Morehead State University in 2005. He is a Life Member of the Southern Highland Handcraft Guild and has been honored with the Kentucky Arts, Education and Humanities Cabinet Service Award and the Arts and Culture Award from the East Kentucky Leadership Conference. He currently is publisher of the Flemingsburg Gazette and lives at Bald Hill in Fleming County.

Barker’s first book, “Fire On The Mountain,” was published in 1983, followed by “Copperhead Summer,” “Mountain Passage & Other Stories” and “All Night Dog,” all fiction, then two University of Tennessee Press books “The Handcraft Revival in Southern Appalachia, 1930-1990” and “Notes From a Native Son: Essays on the Appalachian Experience.”

“Kentucky Waltz” can be ordered from online booksellers such as Amazon.com or directly from Wind Publications, www.books@windpub.com.