Departures of note

Wendell Berry was an American writer, poet, essayist, environmental activist, and farmer closely identified with rural Kentucky. Born in Henry County, he earned degrees in English from the University of Kentucky and studied under Wallace Stegner at Stanford before publishing his first novel, Nathan Coulter, in 1960. He spent his life farming and writing at Lane's Landing on the Kentucky River, grounding his work in the belief that one's labor should be rooted in and responsive to one's place.

Berry wrote more than twenty-five books of poetry, twenty-four volumes of essays, and fifteen novels and short-story collections. His landmark 1977 work The Unsettling of America critiqued industrial agriculture and became a cornerstone of American agrarian thought, influencing the local food and regenerative agriculture movements. His Port William fiction, a chronicle of a fictional Kentucky town, drew comparisons to William Faulkner and earned him a place in the Library of America catalog.

A lifelong activist, Berry spoke against the Vietnam War, engaged in civil disobedience against nuclear and coal power, and advocated for sustainable farming, rural communities, and environmental stewardship. He received the National Humanities Medal, served as the 2012 Jefferson Lecturer, and was the first living writer inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.