During a recent presentation at Murray State University, Frank X Walker promised not to make the audience too uncomfortable. “There are things about history we don’t know,” he said, reflecting on his own public education, growing up in Danville. Earlier this month, as the 2025 Clinton and Mary Opal Moore Appalachian Writer-in-Residence at Murray State University, Frank X Walker presented a reading and lecture to a full house in MSU’s Curris Center Ballroom. When Walker noticed an X between the first and last names of Mary Edelen, he realized the X was Mary’s legal signature. That is when he changed his name to Frank X Walker.