Kentucky Monthly

Kentucky Monthly is a general interest regional magazine about the U.S. state of Kentucky and Kentuckians. Founded in 1998 by Stephen M. Vest, publisher, Michael Embry, editor, (who retired in 2006) and business manager Kay Vest, it featured actor George Clooney on its first (and 101st) cover and has featured such Kentucky notables as Ashley Judd, Molly Sims, Wendell Berry, Silas House, Annie Potts, and numerous others. In 2005 Kentucky Monthly was presented the Governor's Award in the Arts for media, the Commonwealth's highest prize in the arts. Also in 2005, Kentucky Monthly was featured in the Stu Pollard film Keep Your Distance in a scene where the main character is named Kentuckian of the Year. Kentucky Monthly was named the official state magazine for The Cup Experience, a series of events held in conjunction with the 2008 Ryder Cup in Louisville in September 2008. Team USA won the Ryder Cup, led by Kentuckians Kenny Perry and J. B. Holmes, who were named Kentuckians of the Year. In March 2008, Kentucky Monthly was selected as the "Official Kentucky Magazine" for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. In 2008, celebrating its 10th anniversary, Kentucky Monthly published Another Serving: Kentucky Monthly's 10th Anniversary Cookbook and THAT Kind of Journalist, a collection of Vest's back-page columns. The magazine has since published: Sacred Places of Kentucky (2011); Seasoned Cooking of Kentucky (2011); Kentucky A to Z by Amanda Hervey (2012); Kentucky's Twelve Days of Christmas (2012), an anthology of Kentucky-related Christmas material edited by James B. Goode, which includes such writers as Wendell Berry, Robert Penn Warren, Irvin S. Cobb, and Harriette Simpson Arnow; and Walt's Wisdon by Walt Reichert (2014), a collection of the author's gardening columns from Kentucky Monthly. In 2016 Kentucky Monthly released the Kentucky Monthly Coloring Book in conjunction with Danville artist Robert Powell.