On Sunday, November 22 from 3–5 p.m. the University Press of Mississippi will be holding its annual BOOKFRIENDS fall membership party at The Auditorium Restaurant at the Duling School. This year’s party will honor the memory of Willie Morris on the seventy-fifth anniversary of his birth.
To mark the occasion UPM is featuring a new, limited edition of the quintessential Morris essay, My Two Oxfords. This edition includes a foreword by Morris’ widow, Joanne Prichard Morris, and features a photograph from his son, David Rae.
In this piece, he addresses the quirky circumstances of having lived in “two of the world’s most disparate places.” He writes of the two Oxfords in his life—Oxford University in England where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar in the 1950s and Oxford, Mississippi, the home of the University of Mississippi, where he was writer-in-residence at the time. “May I suggest there are similarities but not all that many?” he says.
Edwin M. Yoder, a longtime friend of Willie Morris from their Oxford University days, will be speaking at the event. Yoder is a Pulitzer prize-winning editorialist, author and political columnist. Yoder is also the author of The Historical Present published by University Press of Mississippi.
The UPM BOOKFRIENDS are invaluable to the local success of the Press. “For nearly twenty years, the BOOKFRIENDS have put together fascinating programs to celebrate authors and the world of letters in Mississippi and beyond,” says Leila Salisbury, director of University Press of Mississippi.
“Though much of the news we hear about the publishing world today is about electronic books, this group does the invaluable job of helping the University Press of Mississippi connect with passionate readers and those who love the well-printed book.”
This event is open to the public. Nonmembers may purchase an annual membership for $50 and is payable at the event (or you may join BOOKFRIENDS today). Copies of My Two Oxfords will be available for sale by Lemuria Books.
UPM has several other titles available by Willie Morris.
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