for my friend Gurney

In 2017, I wrote an obituary for Gurney Norman.

Gurney died one week ago, on Oct. 12, 2025, at the age of 88.

Writing the obituary was an assignment in my JOU 301: News Reporting class. I no longer have the syllabus (I wish I did, as that’s the class I now teach), but I think the assignment mandated that we write an obituary about someone who was still alive. Inspired by taking a Kentucky literature class earlier that year, I picked Gurney.

I took this photo of Gurney in his office at the University of Kentucky in 2019.

I didn’t know him at the time, other than having read his work of autobiographical fiction, Kinfolks. But a few semesters later, I got to know him—I spent Monday evenings in his autobiographical writing class, and I interviewed him repeatedly for my mobile journalism class project. We bonded over being journalism students, 60 years apart, and we got to tour the under-construction Grehan Journalism Building together and point out the places where we had worked late into the night.

During that same semester, Gurney was inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. He was not my only hero in that Hall of Fame class: Alice Allison Dunnigan was posthumously inducted.

Toward the end of the semester, after I had turned in my 60-page draft of autobiographical writing focused on my great-grandparents, Gurney sent me an email of feedback.

“You are such a fine writer, Bailey, it is a pleasure to read your work,” Gurney wrote. “Of course I know a bit about your work at the Kernel. Now this autobiographical writing reveals your literary gift. You are clearly meant to be a writer of books.”

I don’t mean to make this about myself or any gift I may have, but this level of encouragement was a core part of who Gurney was. I have heard so many Kentucky literary giants—Crystal Wilkinson, Frank X Walker, Robert Gipe—speak and write about the impact Gurney had on them and their writing.   

So Gurney will live on not only through his own writing, but through the writing of those he inspired and encouraged. One of my favorite and proudest things to be is a Kentucky writer, and I am grateful to share that with Gurney Norman.

In my obituary assignment, I had to share accurate information and conduct real interviews, but we made up the funeral details. This was from my own imagination, but I think Gurney would have approved:

“Instead of flowers, mourners of Norman are asked to purchase a book by a Kentucky author in Norman’s honor and memory.”