Meet our New Program Manager!

Get to know Amelia and join us for a Virtual Meet and Greet!

Hello! I’m Amelia Martens, a member of the RUX 2016 cohort, and I’m honored to be the new Program Manager for the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange. I’ve made Paducah my home since 2007, when I began teaching at West Kentucky Community and Technical College. I love to write and read, be outside, work in the garden, walk by the Ohio, be with my family (my twin sister moved to town during the pandemic and it’s the best!), and I love to learn.

Amelia, at home in Paducah with her two daughters.

A significant joy of my life as a Kentuckian is as part of our vibrant literary community; I am primarily a poet, but you can read a recent short story (featuring an octopus!) at Story Quarterly, check out a tiny piece of my new nonfiction at F3LL Magazine, or learn more about my writing in general at ameliamartens.com. It’s also my honor to serve as the current President of the Kentucky State Poetry Society, whose aim is to promote poetry across our Commonwealth, and as a curator of the Rivertown Reading Series, which brings writers to Paducah to share their work. Much of my writing grows out of my awe as a mom of two awesome daughters who are full of questions and ideas.

While I am learning more each day about my role as the new Program Manager for RUX, I already feel happily at home in this community. I am excited to collaborate with a statewide network of awesome Steering Committee members, alumni, partners, and cohort members–especially as RUX returns to in-person weekend intensives in our 2022 Host Communities of Muhlenberg County, Louisville, and Estill County. I am proud to be part of the RUX leadership that creates year-round programming to connect Kentuckians across a diversity of thought, experience, and identity. Or as my older daughter says, “Mom got a cool job working with cool people.”

There’s Amelia (in yellow) with the RUX 2016 cohort at Land Between the Lakes.

RUX is deeply important to me. Being part of the 2016 cohort altered how I saw myself and my place in Kentucky; the experience of gathering together across the state grounded me in vital practices of humanity. We’ve been through a lot these last few years, and it will be good to be together in person again! As Kentuckians in 2022 actively seek to acknowledge, support, and develop healthy practices for connecting people, place, and partnerships, I am grateful to be part of this important work as the new Program Manager. Thanks for bringing me in!