The first Saturday in May unites Kentuckians across the state as we all gather to watch that famous run for the roses, The Kentucky Derby. But before the singing of “My Old Kentucky Home” or the loading of the starting gate, you’re invited to a special Derby Day Celebration at JCPL!
Join us from 12 pm to 3 pm on Saturday, May 2, for family-friendly fun with food and drinks provided by the Jessamine County Homeless Coalition.
more: Celebrate Derby Day at JCPL
A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts. These exercises can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing.
Brought to you in partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
Think your story doesn’t matter? Author Willie Carver Jr. believes that “each of us has a story that can help contribute to the complexity of all of us….”
When Willie uses writing prompts to unlock his story, “they’re almost always body related.” That’s because he thinks “the truth of things is already in your body.”
On this episode, Willie shares a prompt that will help you discover what your body already knows. He also discusses his new book, Tore All to Pieces; why learning to write is like learning a foreign language; and more. Listen below!
more: Prompt to Page with Willie Carver Jr.
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
Give your reading a fresh start with the Spring Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge.
From now through June 30, 2026, keep track of books you read or listen to on the Spring Books & Bites Bingo Card. Complete all 9 squares for a chance to win a $50 Joseph-Beth gift card.
On this episode, we visit fictional small-towns from Mississippi to Northern Ireland.
Our picks include an emotional YA novel about close friendship; a tale of college football that will tackle you out the gate; and a dark comedy served with a side of curry chips.
more: Small-Town Reads for Spring Bingo
Up your reading game with the Spring Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge!
A reading challenge is a great way to set reading goals for yourself, discover new authors and genres, and have fun while doing it.
more: Spring into Reading with Books & Bites Bingo
A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts. These exercises can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing.
Brought to you in partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
Poet Kevin Nance uses writing prompts regularly because they “can take you places that you never could have gone any other way.”
On this episode, Kevin discusses ways to access the part of the brain that author Marilynne Robinson believes is most creative—your “back mind.” He also shares a prompt that helps his writing students “tap into their inner angst.” Listen below!
more: Prompt to Page with Kevin Nance
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
This month, we discuss books where the weather plays a major role, one of the prompts on the Winter Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge.
From hurricanes to snowstorms, this episode has all the major weather events covered!
If you’re participating in Winter Books & Bites Bingo, don’t forget to turn in your bingo card by the end of March. Turn your card in at the Customer Service Desk to receive your bookmark or use the online entry form.
more: The Forecast Calls for Books
In February 2019, the Jessamine County Public Library began recording oral history interviews with several current and former Jessamine County residents about their relatives who are buried in Locust Grove, an African-American cemetery in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
Condensed versions of the interviews were published as part of the Locust Grove Oral History podcast and later re-released as episode two of the Jessamine History Walks podcast.
Now the complete Locust Grove oral history interviews and transcripts are available in the Kentucky Digital Library (KDL). KDL aims “to enhance scholarship, research, and lifelong learning by providing access to shared digital archival collections in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”
These longer interviews help give researchers and community members a better understanding of Black life in Jessamine County.
more: Locust Grove Oral History Interviews Available in the Kentucky Digital Library
A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts. These exercises can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing.
Brought to you in partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
Poet Shauna M. Morgan understands that feeling “weighed down by all of those things happening around us” can make writing even more challenging.
For her, it helps to remember “that generations of my forebears created art in times of abject crises and bore witness to what was happening.”
On episode 53, Shauna shares what she calls the “weight prompt.” It will help you reflect on subjects that feel heavy to you as well as subjects that feel light. Listen below!
more: Prompt to Page with Shauna M. Morgan
As part of this year’s Black History Month Celebration on Saturday, Feb. 21, from noon to 2 pm, the library will screen Lexington: Resilience in the Redline.
This documentary by Lexington nonprofit Black Yarn sold out its August premiere at Lexington’s Lyric Theatre and later sold out the Kentucky Theatre.
Black Yarn President and co-founder Kristen LaRue Bond; co-founders Rona Roberts and Barbara Sutherland; and Director of Research Regina M. Lewis answered our questions about the film and their organization.
What is the mission of Black Yarn?
Black Yarn aims to shine a light on systemic harms, foster equity, and connect Black experiences with those of all Americans through storytelling, research, and collaboration.
Tell us about your documentary, Lexington: Resilience in the Redline.
The film focuses on the history and present impact of residential segregation on Black land and wealth in Lexington, KY, and the potential pathways to a more just future in our community.
The film features more than 20 Lexington residents who weave together policy, history, and personal testimony to show how past decisions continue to shape present-day outcomes and how communities have shown resilience despite those harms.
The documentary is one entry point into a larger body of work that includes community-based research, public education, convenings, and collaborative action.
It helps set shared context for deeper conversations about housing, health, wealth, infrastructure, and belonging.
Can you explain the term redlining?
Redlining is the practice of denying home loans to people in certain neighborhoods based on a number of factors, particularly the race or ethnicity of the residents rather than the qualifications of the individual home buyer or the value of the specific house.
Banks and mortgage companies practiced redlining for many years, but it was really the federal government, through loan programs like the FHA, that created a whole system of discrimination through its notorious redlining maps and appraisers’ manual.
That practice is illegal now, since passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
The government and community members play an important role in making sure the law is followed. While redlining is illegal today, its effects remain deeply embedded in patterns of wealth, health, environment, and access to opportunity.
What actions do you hope viewers will take after seeing the film?
We hope viewers will come to understand that many of the huge disparities in wealth, education, health, and opportunity that we see today have resulted from the intentional housing discrimination and segregation of the past.
We also hope that viewers will join us in efforts to write a more equitable future in Lexington.
Black Yarn is planning community events around research, storytelling, and collaboration and would love for audiences to move toward sustained engagement; whether that’s showing up to community conversations, supporting policy change, funding equitable work, or contributing their skills and resources.
Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about the documentary or about Black Yarn?
Black Yarn believes that the stories we tell shape the futures we build. Lexington: Resilience in the Redline is an invitation to imagine and co-create a more just and connected future. We see this work as ongoing, collective, and rooted in both truth-telling and hope.
Saturday, Feb. 21, 12 pm to 2 pm
Meeting Room 2
The 2026 Black History Month Celebration will begin with the second annual “Hometown Highlights,” a time for individuals from Jessamine County’s Black community to share historical moments, accomplishments, and other interesting facts about their lives.
In the gallery and Main Library, view:
Immediately following the reception, join us for the screening of Lexington: Resilience in the Redline by Black Yarn.
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
This month, we discuss books set on trains or ships, one of the prompts on the Winter Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge.
Travel the high seas with our picks: a graphic novel horror story about a mermaid-like creature; a lyrical, suspenseful novel about a woman following what might be the Arctic Tern’s final migration; and a YA novel about a young artist who is slowly disconnecting from reality and living a second life aboard a ship in the Mariana Trench.
Prefer to stay on dry land for this prompt? We also offer some brief suggestions for books set on trains and subways.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts Ι Subscribe via Spotify Ι RSS Feed Ι Episode Transcript
Sea of Sorrows by Rich Douek and Alex Cormack
This graphic novel is set in 1926, when the S.S. Vagabond is hired by a former German U-boat officer to recover gold from a sunken submarine lost during World War I.
From the start, there’s a sense that something isn’t quite right. As tempers flare and trust erodes, the ship’s diver encounters a mermaid-like creature within the wreck, its song calling to him in a way that could doom the entire ship.
This visually stunning book delivers a bleak, maritime horror story that offers something memorable beneath the waves.
Pairing: Creamy Seafood Chowder
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
Franny Stone wants to follow a flock of Arctic Terns on what might be their final migration from the Arctic to the Antarctic.
She convinces Captain Ennis Malone to take her onboard his fishing boat, one of the last vessels allowed to fish for the disappearing schools of Atlantic herring. The birds, she tells him, will lead him to the fish.
Gradually, the crew learns that Franny is not who she appears to be. In fact, she’s broken parole to make this journey.
Migrations is a character-driven adventure story about people trying desperately to hold onto the things they love—whether animals or people—before they disappear completely.
Pairing: Mashed Winter Vegetable Stew
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
This young adult novel follows fifteen-year-old Caden Bosch, an artist who is slowly disconnecting from reality and living in two overlapping worlds.
In the “real” world, Caden is a good student and a caring big brother. But as his anxiety and connection to reality weakens, Caden spends more and more time in his second world as a crew member aboard a ship bound for the Mariana Trench.
This second world mirrors Caden’s growing fear that terrible things will happen if he doesn’t perform certain rituals.
Challenger Deep is a moving, imaginative, and important look at mental health from a compassionate perspective.
Pairing: Rum Runner