The foundation is gearing up for an exciting night on October 1st to name the winner of the inaugural James Baker Hall Foundation Book Award, which in 2024 will be awarded for a work in poetry.

We are preparing to take the James Baker Hall Foundation on the road with a series of house parties. Our goal is to introduce the foundation and our work of supporting Kentucky artists to the people! Would you be interested in helping by holding an introduction party?

Mark your calendars for the first of December as the foundation will be participating in the Good Giving Challenge, an online fundraising event from the Bluegrass Community Foundation and Smiley Pete Publishing.

As the foundation celebrates its first year, we look back on a year of not only getting our legs under us, but of funding two special programs that live our mission. As we will throughout the year, we want to share the good work they are doing and how you can help.

Save the date, as the foundation will be announcing the first winner of our annual book award competition. This year, the focus was on poetry and we are happy to announce we had 70 entries! The guidelines for entry were that poets had to be unpublished and submit a manuscript of a minimum of 50 pages.

One of the two programs funded by the foundation in 2024, Write to Recover, is one segment of programming for inmates housed in the Bullitt County Detention Center (BCDC). As part of the Kentucky Department of Corrections Substance Abuse Program (SAP), the creative writing program helps inmates with healing and teaches a creative outlet for their emotions.