Rare is the author who doesn’t do a virtual author tour or video book trailer these days--yet the pleasure of hearing an author interviewed in-person is still going strong. The University of Louisville Kentucky Author Forum, a nonprofit literary series that pairs (mostly) nonfiction authors with well-known personalities to interview them, is one such example. The Forum is beginning its 16th season, and has grown considerably over the years.
The Kentucky Author Forum consists of a candid, uninterrupted hour of conversation between an author and an interviewer, presented before a live audience at the Bomhard Theatre in The Kentucky Center, which seats approximately 620 people. Tickets cost $17, and the event usually begins with a book sale and wine and cheese courtesy of sponsor Brown-Forman (a wine and spirit company which owns Jack Daniel's). The interview runs for an hour and is followed by an audience Q&A. Kentucky’s public television tapes the conversation and it airs on PBS member stations as Great Conversations. The most recent series aired in more than 50 PBS markets across the country.
The Forum partners with Louisville shop Carmichael’s Bookstore, which won PW’s Bookseller of the Year award in 2009, to sell books at the event. Usually the author (and interviewer, if they’re also an author) sign books before and after the event. Jan Weintraub, associate producer of the Forum, said book sales vary widely depending on the author. “You expect sales in the hundreds for a Malcolm Gladwell. One of the surprise successes has been when authors who are not as well known (Dan Okrent, Richard Ellis) are so engaging as speakers that people are eager for more, making book sales greater than expected.”
Penguin v-p, director of publicity Maureen Donnelly said she has been working with the Forum since 2001, sending authors including Garrison Keillor, Sue Monk Kidd, and Greg Mortensen. "They really go out of their way to match the interviewer with the author," she said. "I think they are the best regional (now with national capacity) event west of the 92nd Street Y.... It’s an event that actually sells books."
While the number of events hasn’t changed over the years (there are four or five annually), the Forum has expanded in other areas. The day of the event, the Courier-Journal usually reviews the featured author’s book and runs a feature article on the author. The author meets with faculty and students at the University of Louisville, where Carmichael’s sells books. Louisville’s NPR news station tapes each live interview and offers downloads and podcasts on its Web site.
This fall, David Plouffe (The Audacity to Win) will be interviewed by Richard Wolffe (Renegade: The Making of a President), Arianna Huffington (Third World America) will be interviewed by an as yet unnamed interviewer, and Andrew Ross Sorkin (Too Big to Fail) will be interviewed by Bethany McLean (co-author of The Smartest Guys in the Room).
Mary Moss Greenebaum, former special assistant to the Mayor of Louisville, founded the Forum in 1996 with the support of the University of Louisville Foundation. It now has two additional sponsors: Brown-Forman and The Humana Foundation, the philanthropic arm of a company based in Louisville. Greenebaum said she founded the Forum thinking "the audience should feel they are eavesdropping on conversation they never expected to hear."
