Creative Juices Margaret Verble ’68 AS, ’73, ’76 ED has written her third novel, “When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky.” Set in 1926 Nashville, the book follows a death-defying young Cherokee horse diver, Two Feathers, who’s on loan to Glendale Park Zoo from a Wild West show. Two’s closest friend at Glendale is Hank Crawford, who loves horses almost as much as she does. He is part of a high-achieving, land-owning Black family. Neither Two nor Hank fit easily into the highly segregated society of 1920s Nashville. When disaster strikes during one of Two’s shows, strange things start to happen at the park. Vestiges of the ancient past begin to surface, apparitions appear, and then the hippo falls mysteriously ill. To get to the bottom of it, an eclectic cast of park performers, employees and even the wealthy stakeholders must come together, making “When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky” an unforgettable and irresistible tale of exotic animals, lingering spirits and unexpected friendship. Verble’s first book, “Maud’s Line” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016, and her second novel, “Cherokee America” was named by the New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2019.
Mike Pratt ’75 ED and Tom Leach ’83 CI have written, “Kentucky Basketball: Two Decades Behind the Scenes” about their careers as broadcasters of University of Kentucky men’s basketball games. Pratt and Leach’s perspective is one from the inside. That historic buzzer beater? They were there. The Platoon System? They were there. The Calipari hiring? They were there! The coaches, the players and the media have all changed over the last two decades, but Pratt and Leach have been the constant and now they are sharing their expert knowledge of one of the most iconic programs in sports.
Jayne Moore Waldrop, ’83 AS, ’86 LAW is the author of “Drowned Town,” a book that explores the multigenerational impact caused by the loss of home and illuminates the joys and sorrows of a group of people bound together by western Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes and the lakes that lie on either side of it. The linked stories are rooted in a landscape forever altered by the mid-20th-century impoundment of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and the seizing of property under the power of eminent domain to create a national recreation area on the narrow strip of land between the lakes. The narrative follows two women whose lives are shaped by their friendship and connection to the place and their stories show how the creation of the lakes both healed and hurt the people connected to them. John Tuttle ‘73 MED has published “O’Donovan’s Travels: A Healer’s Potion,” a book that tells the story of a man who attempts to appease the Gods and fulfill his destiny. A sojourner in strange, foreign lands, O’Donovan, the apostle of the First Order, Healer of the Celtic Goddess, Airmid, dwells in the veil separating the Green World and Otherworld to bring moral balance. To do this, he must accomplish what no mortal has done, appeasing the Moon Goddess Boann by finding her lost daughter. Kyle Macy ’80 BE, ’05 ED and John Huang ’80 AS, ’95 DE have published “From the Rafters of Rupp – The Book.” Beginning in 2017, UK Wildcat legend Kyle Macy hosted “From the Rafters of Rupp,” a series of video interviews with many of these players of yesteryear. This special series of interviews has now been packaged in an all-new, full-color “coffee-table” book containing firsthand accounts of what it was like to play for UK in the players’ own words, complete with vintage photographs. John Craig Hammond ‘02 ‘04 AS and Jeffrey L. Pasley have edited “A Fire Bell in the Past: The Missouri Crisis at 200, Volume II: ‘The Missouri Question’ and Its Answers.” Many new states entered the United States around 200 years ago, but only Missouri almost killed the nation it was trying to join. 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. Drawn from the participants in two landmark conferences held at the University of Missouri and the City University of New York, those who contributed original essays to this second of two volumes — a group that includes young scholars and foremost authorities in the field — answer the Missouri “Question,” in bold fashion. 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.
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