The Berry Center

10/13/2026

Friends, we are so pleased to welcome some of the finest writers the Commonwealth has to offer to beautiful New Castle, Kentucky, for our 2026 Kentucky Arts and Letters Day, and we would LOVE for you to be in attendance. This year will be particularly meaningful as it will be our first without Wendell, but we have a tremendous selection of writers and artists on deck, and we can't wait to join them and you to celebrate the literary arts.

This year we are thrilled to be joined by the following authors reading and signing their work:

Crystal Wilkinson (Our 2026 Honorary Wendell Berry Reader),
Kentucky Poet Laureate Kathleen Driskell
Silas House
Maurice Manning
Frank X Walker
Rebecca Gayle Howell
Robert Gipe
Shauna Morgan
Dianne Aprile
Leatha Kendrick
Willie Davis
and more!

We are also excited to be hosting the work of Kentucky author and artist Richard Taylor in our gallery.

If you are interested in getting ahold of tickets, sales go live this Thursday, October 15th at 6:00PM o'clock EST, and the link will be sent out via email, which you can sign up for at berrycenter.org/mailinglist or at the link in the comments below or in our bio. As always there will be other ways to watch on the day of but we'd sure love to see you here at The Berry Center, so sign up now for a chance at tickets.
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Tickets are required to attend the readings but the bookstore, gallery show, Larkspur Press table, October Press table, and book signing are open to the public.

Space is limited, so reserve your seat early at the link below or in our bio.

See you there, friends!

10/05/2026

Friends, the offices of The Berry Center, Our Home Place Meat, and The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute will be closed this week, 10/6 through 10/9. The Bookstore at The Berry Center will be open regular hours all week. We sure appreciate your Membership, and apologize for any inconvenience. As always, if you have any questions or need to get in touch, just reach out to [email protected]. All our best, friends, and we hope the fall weather is headed your way too.

10/03/2026

Friends, another exciting book event is on the horizon, this time just as much for the young folks as you adults. We are so pleased to welcome NYT (and The Bookstore at The Berry Center!) bestselling author Kim Michele Richardson to New Castle to celebrate her newest children's book, My Kentucky Moonlight School this October 24th at 2pm here in beautiful New Castle, Kentucky.

This wonderful new work celebrates some of the Commonwealth's earliest efforts towards literacy and education in rural places, and we can't think of a more perfect book to show off here at our Agrarian Culture Center. Kim Michele will be reading from the book, teaching us a little about the real life history behind the moonlight schools, signing this book and her other wonderful kids' books and grown-up novels (like the world-renowned 'Book Woman of Troublesome Creek' series!). Join us Saturday, October 24th, for a wonderful afternoon of stories, history, and maybe even a song or two! Link for tickets is below, or head over to our website for more information. Bring the little ones, bring a friend, and we'll see you at My Kentucky Moonlight School!

10/02/2026

Friends, a little taste of our friend Ethan Tapper’s WONDERFUL new book, The Forest Year, which he so graciously shared with us at our teaching farm last Friday. You still have a couple of days left to preorder THE FOREST YEAR: Finding Hope In A World Worth Saving from berrycenterbookstore.com or your own local independent bookstore. We can’t wait to see it on our shelves and in your hands, friends, so get those orders in today! Regretting that you couldn’t join us for the event? Worry not, we’ll have the rest of this excellent evening up on our YouTube page later this fall. In the meantime: get reading, friends! You can find Ethan’s excellent books and MUCH more over at berrycenterbookstore.com!

09/30/2026

It is a real pleasure to be in Our Home Place Meat partnership with our good friends at JFCS Louisville!

09/28/2026

Friends, we can't thank you enough for joining us Saturday for our 2026 ALL FALL Festival. This might have been our best yet and we only have you to thank. With HUNDREDS of you coming out to eat, play, and be merry we can't help but look back at it fondly and know that the Membership is stronger than ever. 400+ books given away, sellout crowds for the cookout (and a VERY special thank you to Chef Dustin Dean of for some world class burgers), the finest art and crafts from our lovely vendors, the best young people having the most fun imaginable, the best volunteers in the business, it was just a hoot and a half from beginning to end. Our extra thanks to the good folks at for setting up the story booth for friends and neighbors to reminisce about Wendell and this beautiful place, as well as The Last Rendevouz Band, who always make it a special day. Friends, if you missed out this year don't worry a bit, we'll catch you at the next one and we'll have PLENTY of opportunities to get involved with the Agrarian Literary League this fall and ALL next year. Thank you, thank you, thank you, dear friends.

09/15/2026

Friends, a huge thank you to WLKY News for taking the time to talk with our own Mary Berry and Rhona Kamar from Feed Louisville about the good work we are doing together to get good food into the hands of people who need it. When our farmers are paid fairly and people in the city get a fair shot at nutritious local food, we all win.

You can find out more and help support these efforts at berrycenter.org and feedlouisville.org

https://www.wlky.com/article/feed-louisville-the-berry-center-quality-food/73708855

A new partnership between local nonprofits aims to provide high-quality food to those experiencing food insecurity and to Louisville's unhoused population.

09/05/2026

Friends, we would like to share a message from Mary about Wendell, the good work here, memorial plans, and what comes next.
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As Mary says in the video, we continue on undeterred. We are still here every day to do what we can to spread the good word and help people foster a land ethic. We hope that you will join us, friends, in carrying that good work ever forward into the future. If you can, we'll be welcoming folks for our ALL Fall Festival next weekend (September 12, 11am-2pm our time) and we'd love to see you here. We'll be sharing copies of our 2026 AND 2027 ALL picks, including Wendell's The Unsettling of America, and talking more about how you can bring this vitally important book to your people and place. As importantly, we'll be in fellowship with one another and taking a little ease with our community, spending a little time shoring up the bonds of friendship and Membership, and taking some time to remember Wendell together as well. It will be a lovely time to be with one another, and we hope that if you are in the neighborhood you'll come out and see us.

We know as well as anyone that this is a hard time, but we know these things are easier to bear together. We're here for you, and we know you are for us as well. We can't wait to invite you to a memorial worthy of Wendell's life's work.
Our immense gratitude, Friends, for your interest, your support, and your own good work.

As always, you can learn more at berrycenter.org or get in touch at [email protected]. All this with every good wish from your friends at The Berry Center.

09/01/2026

Friends,

The Berry Center and Berry family are heartbroken to announce the death of Wendell Erdman Berry, writer and farmer of Port Royal, Henry County, Kentucky. He passed suddenly and peacefully at home yesterday afternoon, August 31st. His work continues, here and in every place where people aim to live according to nature’s measure, on and with and of their beloved home place.

Please help us respect the privacy and the wishes of the family by directing all correspondence, remembrances, inquiries, and good wishes to The Berry Center at [email protected] or by post ℅ The Berry Center, PO Box 582, New Castle KY 40050. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers please consider a donation to The Berry Center or a like-missioned organization doing the good work in your home place in Wendell’s memory.

Photo by James Baker Hall

08/28/2026

Friends, it’s here! Our colleagues at The Bookstore at The Berry Center have the 50th Anniversary edition of The Unsettling of America in stock, and we be happy to add you to the list of hundreds who will getting their preorders in hand in the days to come! Head over to berrycenterbookstore.com to order, and they’ve even decided to sweeten the pot with the coupon code SUMMERREADING to get 20 percent off! Get those orders in, friends!