The Berry Center

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The Berry Center

Putting Wendell Berry’s writings to work by advocating for farmers, land conserving communities, and

In 1975 Wendell Berry published The Unsettling of America, a book that started a national and international conversation on the state of agriculture in our country. The Berry Center continues to bring focus, knowledge, and cohesiveness to the work of changing our ruinous industrial agriculture system into a culture that uses nature as the standard, that accepts no permanent damage to the ecosphere, and that takes into consideration human health in local communities.

06/04/2026

Friends, are you looking for an exciting morning in the field with your favorite young folks? The Berry Center's annual Y'ALL Summer Field Day is happening soon!

Join the Youth Agrarian Literary League on the farm and in the forest on Saturday, June 20, 9 am - 12 pm at The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute. Kids will receive a free copy of The Weedy Garden: A Happy Habitat for Wild Friends (our wonderful 2026 YALL pick) by Margaret and Billy Renkl.

Using the book as a touchpoint, they'll learn about native habitats with a field and forest walk and other hands-on activities. Caregivers are invited to participate in a nature mentoring workshop, taking The Weedy Garden on a walk to explore the relationships between Renkl’s book and the habitats of the farm.

**Registration is required for this fee-free event**
For full details and registration: https://tbcffi.memberclicks.net/yall_field_day

05/30/2026

Our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience, friends, but the bookstore will be closed today, Saturday May 30th. We’ll see you for normal hours next Tuesday, and we’re open 24/7/365 over at berrycenterbookstore.com All our best, and have a lovely weekend.

05/26/2026

Calling all erstwhile picture book writers for another unique opportunity here from our colleagues at The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute and the great George Ella Lyon! Join us for two Saturdays in June to study the form, draft, and edit your own picture book script with guidance from one of the Commonwealth's high practitioners of the art.

George Ella Lyon has written and published over 30 picture books (including last year's Youth Agrarian Literary League pick, All The Water in The World) along with a towering array of novels and poetry collections for youth and adults alike and is a staple on the shelves of The Bookstore at The Berry Center and in the home libraries of the staff here at The Berry Center. We could not be more excited to have her back at The Berry Center to teach this lovely workshop.

Just a few seats remain available for this one, friends, and we promise they'll go quickly. Reserve your spot in the workshop today at the link below or over at berrycenterfarmandforest.org

05/20/2026

Friends, one of our favorite events of the year! Get your young folks signed up today, this one is gonna fill up fast!

05/18/2026

Friends, we are delighted to share some of the wonderful Summer course offerings from our colleagues at The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute! First up this June marks the return of our group study of Wendell's 'The Unsettling of America'.

As Farm & Forest Institute Program Director, Leah Bayens, says it, "This book is The Berry Center’s foundation. It is why we exist. It provides the essential standards by which we decide and evaluate our work. It holds up parity, fairness, and cooperation–amongst ourselves and with the land and creatures on which we depend."

If you've not read The Unsettling of America, or if you've read it once or many times, a group read and discussion of this vital Wendell Berry text is an invaluable experience.

This June, we invite you to join with folks from near and far for the Summer Agrarian Voices Study and take up the agricultural history question: what has happened here?

We welcome remote and hybrid learners, and we can't wait to see you out here on the farm for our closing capstone field day. Full schedule and registration are linked in the comments below.

04/28/2026

Friends, a real treat this week at the next installment of our rural movie night with ‘s rural ministry program.

This week’s outing is a real heater, Kenji Mizogushi’s 1954 masterpiece Sansho The Bailiff. If you like classic cinema, moving dramas, history, or just a beautiful film in general you won’t want to miss this one. 6:30pm sharp this Thursday the 30th in our Agrarian Culture Center here in New Castle. Be there or be square, friends!

04/25/2026

It’s time, friends! Out Spring Open House and Kids’ Arts and Letters Day starts right about now in New Castle and runs til 3! Come out and enjoy some great books, great food, and fun for the whole gang. We’re so happy to welcome our friends from and and

04/23/2026

Happy Earth Day, Friends. Come, and treat it well.

The need comes on me now
to speak across the years
to those who finally will live here
after the present ruin, in the absence
of most of my kind who by now
are dead, or have given their minds
to machines and become strange,
“over-qualified” for the hard
handwork that must be done
to remake, so far as humans
can remake, all that humans
have unmade. To you, whoever
you may be, I say: Come,
meaning to stay. Come,
willing to learn what this place,
like no other, will ask of you
and your children, if you mean
to stay. “This land responds
to good treatment,” I heard
my father say time and again
in his passion to renew, to make
whole, what ill use had broken.
And so to you, whose lives
taken from the life of this place
I cannot foretell, I say:
Come, and treat it well.

XI by Wendell Berry
berrycenter.org

04/21/2026

Friends, the forecast is looking great and we are already stacking straw bales for this weekend's SPRING OPEN HOUSE AND KIDS' ARTS AND LETTERS DAY here at The Berry Center! Bring a friend, bring the kids, bring everybody out this Saturday from 12-3 for great books at The Bookstore at The Berry Center, great food from Our Home Place Meat and Ernesto's Taqueria, great ice cream from Jericho Farmhouse, and a whole lot of fun for kids and grown-ups alike. We can't wait to see you here to celebrate another year of the good work and community of The Berry Center, and we know you'll have a blast celebrating with us. Looking forward to it, Friends!

--For more info and to see the other great events coming up at The Berry Center, head over to berrycenter.org/events and have a look around. Questions, as ever, can be asked via email at [email protected]

Address

111 S. Main Street, P. O. Box 582
New Castle, KY
40050

Telephone

(502) 845-9200

Website

http://berrycenter.org/

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