This celebrated historian has a long relationship with KC. She’ll return next month

When Doris Kearns Goodwin heads to Unity Temple on the Plaza next month to promote her latest book, she won’t have to ask for directions.

The venerable venue has been a home away from home for America’s premier presidential historian. Goodwin, who has written biographies on Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson — as well as a book on the Kennedy family — has appeared at least six times at Unity Temple over the past 25 years to promote books or appear on panels.

“It’s been wonderful,” Goodwin, who won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in history, said during a telephone interview. “I feel really connected.”

Goodwin’s new book is “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s,” which focuses on her late husband, Richard Goodwin. Her visit to Unity Temple on June 12 highlights an impressive slate of author events over the next four months in Kansas City.

“An Unfinished Love Story,” which came out April 16, is her eighth book and her most personal since 1997’s “Wait Till Next Year,” about her and her father’s mutual love affair for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Goodwin remains a baseball fan — she even made one talk at Unity Temple wearing a Royals jersey — although her allegiances have changed.

“The Red Sox became my beloved team after the Dodgers abandoned us to go to Los Angeles,” she said.

In addition to her book talks and panels at Unity Temple, Goodwin has twice been the keynote speaker at the Truman Library Institute’s annual Wild About Harry fundraiser at the Downtown Marriott, including last year’s.

Goodwin hasn’t written a biography of the Man From Independence, but her new production company, Pastimes, is planning a documentary on Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Pastimes already has produced a documentary on George Washington, a miniseries on Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and an upcoming eight-part docuseries for the History Channel titled “Kevin Costner’s The West.”

Presidents have played a huge role not only in Goodwin’s career, but also in her life.

“I would often spend so much time with them that I felt like I knew them, and I would ask them questions,” she said, “and they would never answer me.”

That wasn’t a problem with “An Unfinished Love Story,” even though most of the events took place before she knew her subject-to-be. She and Richard Goodwin met at Harvard University when he was 40 and she was 29. They married in 1975 and settled in Concord, Massachusetts.

“In this case, here’s my guy — and I used to call them ‘my guys’ because I got so close to them taking so long to write those books — but now this was my guy … and I could talk to him and argue with him because he was sitting right there.”

A political speechwriter and presidential adviser to John F. Kennedy and Johnson, Richard Goodwin saved more than 300 boxes containing diaries, handwritten letters, White House memos, drafts of speeches and other memorabilia.

When he turned 80, he and Doris decided to open and organize the material with the idea of turning it into a book. She carried on after his death six years later in 2018 despite some trepidation, including such grief that she had to move out of the house they had shared for decades.

“I made him a promise nearing the end of his life that I would continue with it, and I felt the weight of that. But also I began to think, ‘Well, maybe I really can do this.’

“I was going to help him write a book, but now it had to be in my voice.”

The process turned out to be similar to her previous research-and-writing efforts.

“In this case, what was complicated about it, it was in part a memoir, but it was also in part a biography of Dick. And it was also a history of the 1960s,” she said. “… Dick had that archive of 300 boxes, so that was a miniature gathering of material that I always love to go through, of diaries and letters and drafts of speeches and memos, memorabilia.”

Richard had avoided opening those 300 boxes for more than 50 years because the 1960s ended with so much tragedy, including campus violence, riots and the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Ultimately, reliving the ’60s together by digging through all those memories “really was an adventure for us.” For Doris, it sparked recollections of activism and purpose.

“It was the first time I felt I was involved in something larger than myself,” she said.

“That’s one of the messages I would love to get out to young people, that even though things ended so sadly with that decade and fate intervened, during the best parts of the decade young people really, whether they were in the civil rights movement or marching against segregation or the denial of the vote … there was a sense of excitement about being young and being alive and having the conviction you could make a difference.”

Upcoming author events

Top five:

▪ Tom Clavin, author of the bestselling trilogy of “Wild Bill,” “Dodge City” and “Tombstone,” for “Throne of Grace: A Mountain Man, an Epic Adventure, and the Bloody Conquest of the American West,” 7 p.m. May 14, Rainy Day Books ($33; includes book). rainydaybooks.com.

▪ Tim Kaine, U.S. senator from Virginia and graduate of Rockhurst High School and the University of Missouri, for “Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside” with Candice Millard, 2 p.m. May 25, Kansas City Public Library Central Library (free). kclibrary.org.

▪ Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize winner and presidential historian, for “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s” with David Von Drehle, 7 p.m. June 12, Unity Temple on The Plaza ($39; includes book). rainydaybooks.com.

▪ Sarah Smarsh, Kansas native and resident and National Book Award finalist, for “Bone of the Bone: Essays on America From a Daughter of the Working Class,” 7 p.m. Sept. 12, Liberty Hall ($29.99; includes book and two tickets). ravenbookstore.com.

▪ Margaret Atwood, Canadian writer of the 1985 dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” will appear as part of library’s 150th anniversary speakers series, 7 p.m. Sept. 24, Kansas City Public Library Central Library (free). kclibrary.org.

Also:

▪ Ed O’Keefe for “The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President” with Candice Millard, May 15, Unity Temple on The Plaza. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Larry Tye for “The Jazz Men: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Base Transformed America” with Chuck Haddix, May 16, Reno Club. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Colm Tóibín for “Long Island,” May 20, Unity Temple on The Plaza. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Brian Andrews (KC native) and Jeffrey Wilson for “Act of Defiance (a Jack Ryan novel),” May 22, Unity Temple on The Plaza. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Alice Randall for “My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future,” May 28, Kansas City Public Library Central Library. kclibrary.org

▪ Kevin Fedarko for “A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon,” June 6, Unity Temple on The Plaza. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Martin Sneider for “Amy Unbound, June 18, Rainy Day Books. rainydaybooks.com

▪ William H. Galligan for “Vision Accomplished: The History of Kansas City Southern,” June 19, Rainy Day Books. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Jane Berch for “ The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time,” June 20, Unity Temple on the Plaza. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Jack Carr for “Red Sky Mourning,” June 23, Unity Temple on The Plaza. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Mark Greaney for “Sentinel,” June 24, Rainy Day Books. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Ebony Reed for “Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap” with Vahe Gregorian, June 26, Unity Temple on The Plaza. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Joyce Maynard for “How the Light Gets In,” July 2, Unity Temple on The Plaza. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Claire Lombardo for “Same as It Ever Was,” July 7, Fairway City Hall. rainydaybooks.com

▪ Hampton Sides for “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook,” July 11, Unity Temple on The Plaza. rainydaybooks.com