Kentucky Women's Book Festival features Brandeis Law alumna

Legal publishing and poetry might seem like two vastly different fields, but for Pat Owen, they're not incompatible.

Owen, a 1977 graduate of the Brandeis School of Law, will be featured at the 11th annual Kentucky Women's Book Festival, March 4, 2017.

She is the author of Crossing the Sky Bridge, a book of poetry inspired by love, loss and the natural world. She began writing poetry after her partner of 30 years, Ellen Ewing, was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. Ewing, a 1972 alumna, is well-known within the Brandeis Law community. The Judge Ellen B. Ewing Foundation provides summer fellowship funding for Brandeis Law students to work in the areas of family law, domestic violence and spouse abuse and HIV/AIDS at Legal Aid.

"It's sort of a switch to go from left brain to right brain," Owen said about moving from a career in legal publishing to life as a poet.

Although she's done readings at bookstores, speaking at a festival will be a first for her. Owen expects to talk about her writing process and how she began writing poetry.

"It's a real honor to be part of the whole thing," she said. "I feel very honored to be included."

Her book was published by Larkspur Press, a small letter-press publisher in Monterey, Kentucky.

Also participating in the festival is Tajuana "TJ" Butler-Jackson, a fiction writer and poet. She is also a UofL graduate.

 Other participants include:

• Gwenda Bond, young adult and children’s fiction writer;
• Kathleen Driskell, poet and associate program director of Spalding University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program;
• Nana Lampton, businesswoman, artist and poet;
• Marie Bradby, freelance journalist and children’s book author;
• Annette Cable, illustrator of 17 children’s picture books

Festival sessions and presentations are free, except for an optional $10 lunch, but attendees are asked to register here. The festival begins at 9:30 a.m. with coffee and conversation and the opening session begins at 10 a.m. in the Chao Auditorium of Ekstrom Library. Luncheon registration is required by March 1; call the UofL Women’s Center at 502-852-8976 to register and for more information. The Women’s Center and University Libraries host the event, which is part of the university’s observance of Women’s History Month.

More information about the festival is available in the video below: