Creative Juices

Jason Belcher ’96 AS is the Author of “Versatile Nation: How America’s Knack for Reinventing Itself Will Make Life Better After 2020.” The book provides a history of how the U.S. has overcome crises and survived sweeping transformations in the past. After the tumultuous year of 2020, it forced many Americans to ask fundamental questions about our country: is it collapsing, are things falling apart, and why is there so much chaos? From the coronavirus outbreak which upended millions of lives to a summer filled with violent social unrest, 2020 had the biggest pandemic since 1918, the racial animosities of the 1960s, and the unemployment hardships of an economic depression all rolled into one.

There were no shortages of pundits and commentators who assured Americans the end was indeed nigh, but the good news is they were wrong, and history provides proof of America’s versatility as a nation and ability to overcome monumental challenges. The story of the U.S. has reinvented itself several times and is already undergoing another reinvention in the aftermath of 2020. Like all transformations, this one promises to be a difficult journey, but Belcher takes a fresh look at the events that transformed our nation in the past and provides answers that may offer hope while still being grounded in facts.

John Craig Hammond ’02 AS has co-edited “A Fire Bell in the Past: The Missouri Crisis at 200, Volume I, Western Slavery, National Impasse” with Jeffrey L. Pasley. When the House of Representatives passed the Tallmadge Amendment banning slavery from the prospective new state on Missouri in February 1819, it set off a two-year political crisis. The Missouri Crisis divided the U.S. into slave and free states for the first time and crystallized many of the arguments and conflicts that would later be settled violently during the Civil War. The episode was, as Thomas Jefferson put it, “a fire bell in the night” that terrified him as the possible “knell of the Union.”

This first of two volumes finds myriad new perspectives on the Missouri Crisis through a collection of essays from historians giving the epochal struggle over Missouri statehood its due as a major turning point in American history. Greg Bourke ’83 BE recounts growing up in Louisville and living as a gay Catholic in his book “Gay, Catholic, and American: My Legal Battle for Marriage Equality and Inclusion.” The book describes Bourke’s early struggles for acceptance as an out gay man living in the South during the 1980s and ’90s, his unplanned transformation into an outspoken gay rights activist after being dismissed as a troop leader from the Boy Scouts of America in 2012, and his historic role as one of the named defendants in the landmark United States Supreme Court decision Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.

C.V. Green ’77 HS has written “Reading, Righting, and Alunatic: A Memoir by C.V. Green.” The book details her struggle within a dysfunctional family, a career jeopardized by racism and how she uses her spiritual gifts to help others. Green encompassed eleven years to create her memoir.

John H. Huang ’80 AS, ’95 DE has co-authored “Kentucky Passion: Wildcat Wisdom and Inspiration” with Del Duduit. Huang and Duduit help fans reexperience some of the most memorable seasons, shots, players and coaches from the UK men’s basketball teams. Readers will learn how they too can rise to challenges and find success through inspiring stories from Wildcat history.

Janet Tamaren ’92 MED has written “Yankee Doctor in the Bible Belt: A Memoir,” a humorous memoir about working as a doctor in rural Kentucky. She worked in Kentucky for decades as a general practice doctor and shares her adventures (and misadventures) of small-town doctoring.

Junior Tidal ’03 CI has written “Podcasting: A Practical Guide for Librarians” which details how libraries can digitally record podcasts to highlight library collections, connect with patrons, provide library instruction, and market library services on the internet.

UK and the UK Alumni Association do not necessarily endorse books or other original material mentioned in Creative Juices. The University of Kentucky and the UK Alumni Association are not responsible for the content, views and opinions expressed on websites mentioned in Creative Juices or found via links off of those websites.