In preparation for the 2017
Mississippi Book Festival, we asked our authors to answer a few questions about
our state’s literary and cultural legacy. This is the second of three blogs
posts in which we share their responses. Click here to read Part 1. Below, you’ll find our
authors guide to the Festival, including which events they are most excited
about, who they would cast in their dream panels, and where are their favorite
spots to visit in Jackson. For a full list of panelists attending the Festival
and the schedule of events, click here.
What events (besides your
own) are you most excited about at the Book Festival? Whose autograph are you
hoping to get?
Lorie Watkins, editor of A Literary
History of Mississippi: “I'm
so excited about the panels with Greg Iles, Richard Ford, and Ron Rash. I
hope that I can get into at least one of them!”
Carter Dalton Lyon,
author of Sanctuaries of
Segregation: The Story of the Jackson Church Visit Campaign: “It’s
going to be tough to do everything I want and still make it to my own panel! I’ll
definitely be checking out the panels on The
Mississippi Encyclopedia, the Mississippi Heritage Series, and the one on
Larry Brown. I'm really looking forward to reuniting with all my mentors and
friends who will be there from my days in Oxford. And with two young daughters,
I’m very excited to see the Ezra Jack Keats exhibit at the Capitol.”
W. Ralph Eubanks, author of The House at
the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in
the American South: “I’m looking forward to the poetry panel, since the
lineup—Beth Ann Fennelly, Jill Biaosky, Derrick Harriel, Catherine Pierce, and
Ron Rash—includes such a diverse group of poets. I also think we don’t pay as
much attention to poetry as we should. The Larry Brown panel also interests me,
and I hope it helps make some publisher out there reissue Brown’s memoir On Fire. And I’m hoping to catch the
North Mississippi All-Stars since Shake
Hands with Shorty is my go-to road trip album.”
Susan Cushman, author of the forthcoming Southern Writers on Writing: “The
panels all look wonderful, and it will be hard to choose just one during each
time slot. In the 9:30 slot, I’m torn between the poetry panel—moderated by my
good friend
Beth Ann Fennelly, Poet Laureate of Mississippi—and the panel
called ‘Things Like the Truth,’ because I’d love to hear Ellen Gilchrist (never
met her), and I love Jim Dees, who contributed an essay to the anthology I’m
currently editing for University Press of Mississippi. And at the same time
there’s the Eudora Welty panel, which includes another contributor to the
anthology, W. Ralph Eubanks. Wish I could clone myself and visit all three!
At 10:45 I’ll probably sit in on ‘A Conversation With Richard Ford,’ whom
I’ve never met. I’m moderating a panel at 12:00 and will be signing books from
1:45 – 2:15, so I’m sad to miss the 1:30 panel with Greg Iles. At 2:45 I’ll be
at the Southern Fiction panel, where I’m especially anxious to hear and meet
Kevin Wilson, author of Perfect Little
World, which is on my ‘to buy’ list.
At 4:00 I’m on the ‘Voices of Home’ panel for my novel, Cherry Bomb, so I’ll miss several great
sessions, including the one celebrating The
Mississippi Encyclopedia, which I would have very much enjoyed. Such a
great line-up. Can’t wait! Oh, and I want autographs (actually inscriptions in
their books) from Kevin Wilson, Richard Ford, and Richard Grant.”
Leif Anderson, author of Dancing with My Father: “I found the
Festival online and began to peruse the amazing variety of events and the
quantity of authors, known and unknown, participating in the Festival. It was a
bit like standing in the art store in front of a huge selection of paints; the
colors swim together into a veritable rainbow of confusion. How can one choose?”
Carolyn J. Brown, author of A Daring
Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty, Song of My Life: A Biography
of Margaret Walker, and The Artist’s Sketch: A Biography of Painter
Kate Freeman Clark: “I am looking forward to hearing Richard Ford and
Bill Ferris. I have only heard Richard Ford once before, and I count Bill as a
personal friend. He contributed several photos to my book, Song of My Life: A Biography of Margaret Walker and was one of the
first readers of my first book, A Daring
Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty.”
Curtis Wilkie, author of Assassins, Eccentrics,
Politicians, and Other Persons of Interest: Fifty Pieces from the Road:
“So many good discussions. Unfortunately, several I would especially like
to hear conflict with the one I’m on.”
Panny Mayfield, author of Live from the Mississippi Delta: “Other
authors I especially would like to visit: Leif Anderson (to discuss Ocean
Springs, art, and Walter Anderson); Katie Blount (Mississippi's wonderful
museums nearing completion); Richard Ford (who wrote part of The Sportswriter in Clarksdale's Carnegie
Public Library); Ellen Gilchrist; Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress; Jerry
Mitchell, investigative reporter; and Otis Sanford.”
Ted Ownby, senior editor of The Mississippi
Encyclopedia: “I think there are 21 Mississippi Encyclopedia
contributors and eight or ten subjects of entries on the Book Festival program,
and I'm looking forward to seeing lots of friends and making some new ones.”
William R. Ferris, author of Mule Trader: Ray
Lum's Tales of Horses, Mules, and Men, editor of Afro-American Folk Art and Crafts, and coeditor of Folk
Music and Modern Sound: “Carla Hayden, Jessica Harris,
and Richard Ford.”
Odie Lindsey, associate editor of The Mississippi
Encyclopedia: “Ellen Gilchrist—kerpow!”
Design your dream book
festival panel, with authors and artists, living or dead.
Lorie Watkins: “Well, if I could design
one with all of the authors in my volume, A
Literary History of Mississippi, that would be pretty awesome!”
W. Ralph Eubanks: “Eudora Welty would
be on my dream book festival panel. This is an event I wish she had lived to
see. I’d love to finally see Miss Welty discuss literature with William
Faulkner, but I fear the two of them might be far too polite to each other
for that conversation to take flight.”
Susan Cushman: “This is a fun question, and I had a good time playing with my answers. So here are a few highlights of my dream book festival:
• Keynote: Pat Conroy (rest in peace, Pat!)
• Memoir panel (moderated by Pat Conroy): Mary Karr, Haven Kimmel, Augusten Burroughs, and Harrison Scott Key
• Fiction panel (moderated by Michael Cunningham): Joshilyn Jackson, Michael Farris Smith, Julie Cantrell, and Katherine Clark
• Photography panel (moderated by Annie Leibovitz): Maude Schuyler-Clay, Ed Croom, and Clyde Edgerton
• Poetry panel (moderated by Emily Dickinson): Beth Ann Fennelly, Corey Mesler, Jennifer Horne, Jacqueline Trimble, and Scott Cairns
I know this isn’t a complete festival, but I’m not in touch with children’s literature, short stories, mystery, and other genres that should be represented.”
Charline R. McCord, coeditor of A
Year in Mississippi, Coming Home to Mississippi, Christmas
Memories from Mississippi, Growing Up in Mississippi and Christmas
Stories from Mississippi: “Willie Morris, Eudora Welty,
Barry Hannah, Larry Brown, Ellen Douglas, and Tennessee Williams.”
Ted Ownby: “Part of what's so great
about the Mississippi Book Festival is the chance to see authors you know right
next to authors you haven't discovered yet. So, a dream panel would have
Richard Wright and Eudora Welty, talking and listening to two young novelists I
haven't heard of yet.”
Leif Anderson: “Let us imagine a panel
entitled ‘Writers and The Environment.’ Included in this panel are Henry David
Thoreau, Barbara Kingsolver, Walter Anderson (since I know him well), and Edna
Ferber (because I just finished reading her novel, So Big). The moderator might be Patti Carr Black. I think she could
handle it with a sense of humor.”
James G. Thomas, Jr. associate editor of The Mississippi
Encyclopedia and coeditor of Conversations with Barry Hannah,
Faulkner and History, Faulkner and Print Culture, and Faulkner and the Black Literatures of the
Americas: “Probably Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison,
but there are infinite combinations of great writers—living and dead—who would
make up incredible panels. Sartre, Camus, and Foucault would be another, and
Faulkner, Shelby Foote, and Walker Percy would be yet another. I’d really like
to see Percival Everett, Paul Beatty, W. E. B. Du Bois, and James Weldon
Johnson on the same panel. I could go on . . .”
Carolyn J. Brown: “My dream panel would
be the three women who are the subjects of my books: Eudora Welty, Margaret
Walker, and painter Kate Freeman Clark.”
Curtis Wilke: “I’d bring back from the
dead two friends, Barry Hannah and Willie Morris, both smart, colorful, and
loquacious. A rivalry existed between the two, which would make it more interesting.”
Mary Lindsay Dickinson, widow of Jim
Dickinson, author of I’m Just Dead, I’m
Not Gone: “Here's my dream book festival panel of my favorite
Mississippi authors and artists: Jim Dickinson, Jim Dees, Larry Brown, John
Grisham, William Faulkner and Walter Anderson.”
William R. Ferris: “William Faulkner,
Richard Wright, Tennessee Williams, and Eudora Welty—‘Why Do You Write?’”
Odie Lindsey: “Toni Morrison, and
whomever Toni Morrison chooses”
If you’re visiting
Jackson for the Festival, what is something you look forward to doing while
you’re here? If you live in Jackson, where are some of your favorite spots?
Lorie Watkins: “I always like to visit
Lemuria and eat at some of the more historic restaurants downtown like The
Mayflower or The Elite.”
Norma Watkins, author of The
Last Resort: Taking the Mississippi Cure: “I am visiting Jackson for the Festival.
I grew up in Jackson, and when I come back I search out my old landmarks:
During Elementary, Bailey Junior High, Central High School—all of which are
something else today.”
W. Ralph Eubanks: “Two things: lunch at
Bully’s (if I go, I have to skip dinner, since lunch exceeds my normal
caloric intake) and an Uncle Val’s gin and tonic at the Library Bar in the
Fairview Inn.”
Charline R. McCord: “I live in Clinton,
but my favorite Jackson place to be is inside New Stage Theatre. I would
happily sit through every rehearsal and every production if they would let me.”
Carolyn J. Brown: “I think visitors to
the Festival should have a drink at The Library in the Fairview Inn, where
there are drinks named for famous Mississippi writers like Eudora Welty and
Margaret Walker, and photographs of famous Mississippi writers grace the walls.
I also hope visitors stop by the Mississippi Museum of Art and take in the Kate
Freeman Clark exhibition which opens on Thursday, August 17, right in time for
the Festival. And, of course, you can’t come to Jackson without visiting
Lemuria, Jackson’s
amazing independent bookstore!”
Curtis Wilkie: “Visiting with friends
and dining on redfish at The Mayflower”
Panny Mayfield: “I live in the
Mississippi Delta, an hour from Memphis, Tennessee, and do not visit Jackson
often (three-hour drive), although my daughter, Julia, and her family live
there. When my grandsons were small, the Museum of Natural History was a
favorite place to visit. Mississippi's Museum of Art and the Old Capitol Museum
are others. Also, Hal and Mal's and The Mayflower.”
William R. Ferris: “Having a meal at The
Mayflower and checking out books at Lemuria”
Odie Lindsey: “I’m sticking near the Festival.
Just too many good panels to attend.”
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