Stephen M. Vest is the editor and publisher of Kentucky Monthly magazine, which won the Governor’s Award in the Arts (Media) in 2005. Founded in 1998, Kentucky Monthly has more than 100,000 readers. He is the author of Unexpected Inheritance, a memoir about being raised by older parents and a hard-to-please grandmother (Butler Books, 2014), two collections of his columns, and the publisher of the 2012 anthology Kentucky’s Twelve Days of Christmas. Vest holds degrees from the University of Louisville (1986) and Murray State University (MFA, 2011). His work has appeared in the Journal of Kentucky Studies. A frequent speaker, Vest is also an adjunct professor of communications at Campbellsville University, Eastern Kentucky University, and Midway University. He and his wife, Kay, reside in Frankfort. They have four grown children.