the

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SOUTHERN CULTURE • WINTER 2009 THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI Ted Ownby Named Director of Center

fter searching far and wide for a new director for the Center for Athe Study of Southern Culture, it turns out the ideal candidate was in the Center’s own backyard. Former interim director Ted Ownby, professor of History and Southern Studies, was chosen to take the helm as permanent director in December. “We did a full scale, international search, and we had lots of candidates who applied and visited campus and at the end of the process we had not hired anyone,” Ownby said. So this fall, he decided to apply. Ownby, who earned his BA from Vanderbilt and MA and doctorate from Johns Hopkins, is a coeditor of the forthcoming Mississippi Encyclopedia Ted Ownby and coeditor of the Gender volume in The New Encyclopedia of Southern David Wharton Culture. He is the author of two books, to Southern Studies is the freedom to faculty and staff both respond to and Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and be creative, through interdisciplinary help shape a lot of those ideas.” Manhood in the Rural South, 1865–1920 scholarship or through connections Ownby says that it is crucial that and American Dreams in Mississippi: between scholarship and the rest of Southern Studies keeps changing. “Part Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, 1830– the world. That freedom has brought of the excitement of this program is 1998, and he has edited collections of the Center people who have unique that the students change, academia essays on slavery, the role of ideas in the abilities,” Ownby said. “The Center en- certainly changes, and the South it- civil rights movement, and manners in courages new ideas, and our academic self keeps changing. Part of our job Southern history. program draws majors and graduate stu- is to take the topics that bring people He said he enjoys working with the dents who are willing to have a unique to Southern Studies, study those top- wide range of people and activities degree. The students tend to be open- ics well, and also to expand the range at the Center. “I realized a long time minded and have their own ideas about ago that part of what attracts people what an education should be, and our continued on page 3 the D IRECTOR’ S COLUMN

HAPPY NEW YEAR. This is my fi rst column as the new director of the Center. Published Quarterly by Since Charles Wilson became Kelly Gene Cook Chair of History and Southern The Center for the Study of Southern Culture Studies in fall 2007, I have been serving as interim director. When the Center con- The University of Mississippi ducted a search for a new director last year, many of us hoped to hire someone from Telephone: 662-915-5993 outside the University of Mississippi. The goal was to hire someone with a different Fax: 662-915-5814 E-mail: [email protected] set of experiences and some new ideas. When that search did not end with the hir- www.olemiss.edu/depts/south ing of a new director, I decided to apply the position, hoping both that I understand what works well at the Center and also that I can help us develop some new ideas. I IN THIS ISSUE was fl attered to be offered the position of director in December. Winter 2009 In the various discussions that were part of the interview process (being inter- 1 Ownby Named Center Director viewed by friends was odd, but not really painful), I mentioned a few principles I 2 Director’s Column would try to use as director. 3 Living Blues Symposium First, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture begins with the academic pro- 4 Brown Bag Schedule: Winter 2009 gram. One of many things the original designers of the Center did absolutely right was 4 Gammill Gallery Exhibition Schedule to put the teaching of students in an undergraduate and graduate program at the center 5 Local Children “Dig” Gardening of our mission. Many academic institutions come and go or, worse, start and stagnate, 6 SST Alums and Their New Jobs in part because they fail to generate the excitement and new ideas and need for rel- 7 Undergraduate Southern Studies News evance that comes from teaching students. I am excited by efforts many colleagues are 8 2009 Delta Literary Tour Schedule 9 Thomas Talks about Delta Tour making to broaden Southern Studies teaching in various directions, among them the 10 2009 Oxford Conference for the Book global South, foodways, racial defi nition and reconciliation, studying and making fi lm, 10 Book Conference Elderhostel Program and discovering new theories about place and region. Making sure teaching and schol- 11 2009 OCB Poster, Walter Anderson arship remain at the center of Southern Studies means, among other things, making Exhibition and Performances connections between outreach and teaching, keeping graduate funding in mind in 12 Denman to Lead Writing Workshop discussing new projects, and—always—keeping up with current scholarship. 13 Jay Asher’s Novel Selected as Ninth- Second, the Center has long relied on partnerships with various departments Grade Book for Oxford Conference around the University, and I want to continue those partnerships, making sure we 14 O’Connors Offer Book & Author Publicity Session are all benefi ting from them, and develop new ones. The range of the Center makes 14 Book Conference Panel Topics it ideal to keep building new and even better bonds with those outside Barnard 15 Reading the South: Reviews & Notes Observatory. 19 Friends Honor Barry & Susan Hannah Third, the Center and its alumni and friends have over the past three decades de- with Creative Writing Scholarship veloped a set of accomplishments and skills we can continue to use for the benefi t of 19 Poets & Fiction Writers at Conference the program. For example, we can invite interested Southern Studies alumni to visit 20 MIAL Celebrates 30th Anniversary and, when possible, give presentations, or we can start working to put more photog- with Lifetime Achievement Awards raphy by Center faculty and staff and alumni on the walls of Barnard Observatory. 21 Clarksdale’s 2009 Tennessee Williams Festival Set for October 16–17 We can call on Southern Studies alumni to consider becoming more involved in 22 Welty at 100 making fi nancial contributions to the Center. Above all, we can use suggestions. 22 Welty Awards Finally, I am encouraging faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends to start dis- 23 Mississippi Reads 2009: Eudora Welty cussing new ideas so the Center will be ready to be pursuing them by the time we 24 F&Y 2009: “Faulkner and Mystery” complete our encyclopedia projects. The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, published 25 Southern Foodways Alliance News in 1989, its successor The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, and the not-yet- 29 Studies in American Culture Call published Mississippi Encyclopedia have been extraordinary in making the Center a 29 Notes on Contributors place that sets agendas for scholarship, identifi es and publishes the work of new and 30 Southern Culture Catalog Items established scholars, and brings that scholarship together in accessible ways. The 32 Address Section/Mailing List Form/ New Encyclopedia just published the 12th volume (Music) of an eventual 24-volume Friends Information and Form set, and the Mississippi Encyclopedia will be ready to be published in 2010. We need REGISTER STAFF to make plans so that, when our last encyclopedia volume is published, we are pursu- Editor: Ann J. Abadie ing other ideas. Graphic Designer: Susan Bauer Lee So, I encourage everyone reading the Southern Register to send ideas—big or small, Mailing List Manager: Mary Hartwell Howorth complimentary or critical, similar to past projects or completely new, simple or im- Editorial Assistant: Sally Cassady Lyon practical, inexpensive or virtually unfundable—to me at [email protected] or Lithographer: RR Donnelley Magazine Group by mail at Barnard Observatory. The faculty and staff will consider all of them in discussions we will have about new possibilities in the coming months. The University complies with all applicable laws regard- ing affi rmative action and equal opportunity in all its ac- Just a word about the help friends and colleagues offered in my time as interim direc- tivities and programs and does not discriminate against anyone protected by law because of age, color, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex, or status as a veteran continued on page 29 or disabled veteran.

Page 2 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Living Blues Symposium Set continued from 1 of topics to study. A lot of people as- sume that Southern Studies is about for February 26–27, 2009 just one or two things—that it’s about race, or poverty. Or it’s about religion, Focused on documenting or literature, or music. Or that it’s all the blues, the Living Blues wrapped up in a history where the con- Symposium includes dedica- cept of the South used to matter to a lot tion of the Living Blues Trail of people but doesn’t matter so much Marker by the Mississippi anymore. Or that it’s about what C. Blues Commission, an ad- Vann Woodward called ‘the burden of dress by David Evans as the Southern history.’” Ownby continues, Early Wright keynote speak- “In fact, Southern Studies is about all er, a sampling of some re- those things, but it is about more than cently digitized Alan Lomax that, and it is always changing.” Recordings from the University’s Blues more than 120 historical markers and Glenn Hopkins, dean of the College Archive, and a jam session with the interpretive sites located throughout the of Liberal Arts, said Ownby was a per- audience. A special edition of Thacker state and will continue to be developed fect fi t for the Center. “Ted Ownby has Mountain Radio and a Highway 61 in phases as funding becomes available. been a member of the faculty of the Radio/Southern Foodways Alliance re- Phase 1 of the Trail consisted of nine Center for 20 years and is intimately ception also are planned. markers that were funded in part by a familiar with all aspects of the Center’s “We will also have a fi eld record- grant from the National Endowment work,” said Hopkins. “This knowledge, ing panel discussion with George for the Arts. along with his leadership and deep be- Mitchell and University of Georgia Greg Johnson, curator of the lief in the mission of the Center, made art professor Art Rosenbaum,” said University’s Blues Archive, will unveil him an obvious choice for director.” Mark Camarigg, Living Blues publica- some newly digitized audio and video To Ownby, being director means try- tions manager. “Mitchell was the fi rst from the Alan Lomax Archive. “Much ing to be a partner with numerous ongo- to record R. L. Burnside in 1967, and of what we know about the history ing projects, including Living Blues, the Rosenbaum just received two Grammy and development of blues music and Oxford Conference for the Book, the nominations for his recent box set, Art culture was passed along to us through Southern Foodways Alliance, two en- of Field Recording, Volume I: 50 Years of the research of David Evans, George cyclopedias, and documentary projects. Traditional American Music Documented Mitchell, Alan Lomax, Jim O’Neal, and “I think that everything starts with by Art Rosenbaum.” others,” said Johnson. “We’ll be able to teaching and academics,” Ownby said. “I The symposium culminates February hear stories from the pioneering days of want to keep building new partnerships 27 with an 8 p.m. performance by soul recording previously unheard musicians inside and outside the University, and and gospel singer Mavis Staples at the for scholarly and commercial purposes. encourage Center faculty, staff, students, Ford Center for the Performing Arts. We’ll hear how academic and fan-based alumni, and friends to think of big, new From her early days of sharing lead pursuits of the blues exposed this music ideas. The Center has done some ex- vocals with her groundbreaking fam- to worldwide audiences.” traordinary and far-sighted things and ily gospel group, The Staple Singers, to Symposium sessions are to be held in we need to keep looking ahead. I look her storied solo recordings, Staples has Barnard Observatory. Sponsors include forward to seeing what happens next.” been an inspirational force in modern the Center for the Study of Southern Beyond that, there is another reason popular culture and music. Culture, the Oxford Convention and Ownby continues after two decades at Symposium sessions are free and open Visitors Bureau, the Yoknapatawpha the University. “Being at the Center has to the public except the Staples con- Arts Council, Mississippi Development been a way for me to be part of a pretty cert. Tickets to the concert are $24 for Authority, the University’s Department exciting set of projects and questions and general admission and can be purchased of Archives and Special Collections in possibilities. We study serious things, but by calling 662-915-2787. the J. D. Williams Library, and Austin’s it’s usually fun here,” he said. “On Friday, February 27, Living Blues Music. and the Blues Archive will receive a For more information, call 662-915- Rebecca Lauck Cleary Blues Trail Marker from the State of 5742 or e-mail [email protected], Mississippi Blues Commission. It is the or go to www.livingblues.com. For as- fi rst trail marker in Lafayette County sistance related to a disability, call and is sponsored in part by the Oxford 662-915-7236. Tourism Council,” Camarigg said. Rebecca Lauck Cleary The Mississippi Blues Trail features 

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 3 Center for the Study of Southern Culture

The University of Mississippi JANUARY 21 “South Apopka: A Community Portrait: A Gammill Gallery Talk” Brown Bag Lunch and Lecture Series Bob Michaels, Documentary Photographer Spring 2009 Apopka, Florida The Brown Bag Luncheon Series takes place each Wednesday at 28 “Oxford Film Festival: The noon in the Barnard Observatory Lecture Hall during the regular Previews” academic year. Michelle Emmanuel, Molly Ferguson, and Micah Ginn, Coordinators Scott Barretta, Host, APRIL Oxford Film Festival Highway 61 Blues Radio 1 “A Photographic Survey of Mark Camarrigg, Oxford” FEBRUARY Managing Editor Documentary Photography 4 “University Media Production Living Blues Magazine Students Film Projects” 8 “Should Christians Dance?: The Rebecca Batey, Eric Feldman, MARCH American Play Party” and Ferriday Mansel 4 “Football Flashbacks: Classic Alan Spurgeon, Professor of Southern Studies Graduate Film Footage from the Ole Miss Music Students Archives” 15 “Thacker Mountain Radio Hour: 11 “USpeak: Giving Voice to Micah Ginn, Producer Director, A History” College Students” University Media Production Mary Warner, Southern Studies Artair Rogers, Winter Institute Joe York, Filmmaker, University Graduate Student Intern Media Production 22 “Mississippi Folk: A Summer 18 “One Mississippi: Bringing 11 “The Second Strange Career of Preview of Traditional Art, College Students Together” Jim Crow” Music, and Culture in the Melissa Cole, Winter Institute Will Hustwit, Instructor Magnolia State” Intern Department of History Mary Margaret Miller, Heritage 25 “Documenting the Blues at Ole Program director, Mississippi Miss” SPRING BREAK Arts Commission Greg Johnson, Blues Archivist, 29 “Singing the Gospel in the Special Collections 25 Oxford Conference for the Book: Springtime” Williams Library A Preview University of Mississippi Gospel Choir

Exhibition Schedule March 30–June 12, 2009 January 21–March 26, 2009 Documentary Photography Students Bob Michaels Oxford, Mississippi: South Apopka: A Community Portrait A Photographic Survey, 2008

The Gammill Gallery, located in Barnard Observatory, is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., except for University holidays. Telephone: 662–915–5993.

Page 4 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Local Children “Dig” Gardening Interest in environmental education is gaining momentum across the country. As individuals and groups turn their at- tention to issues of sustainability, there is a growing desire to introduce the importance of these topics to children. Global warming, food politics, and health issues are interrelated subjects that students at the Oxford Boys and Girls Club are exploring through a new Teaching Garden program. The joint efforts of the Barksdale Clubhouse, the Oxford Gardening Club, and the Southern Foodways Alliance helped implement an education program in which local Boys and Girls Club partic- ipants from ages six to 12 are involved in all aspects of caring for a 40-foot-by- 120-foot vegetable and herb garden, including planting, watering, weeding, fertilizing, and harvesting. The mission of the Boys and Girls Club Teaching Garden is to help students understand the role of food in life—the garden stresses the importance of proper stew- ardship of the land and an appreciation for nature while promoting improved nutrition and academic success by high- lighting healthy foods through educa- tional programming. Participants in The master plan of the Teaching the Oxford Boys Garden is to incorporate permanent and Girls Club raised beds divided into fi ve parts includ- Teaching Garden ing a friendship garden, which will consist project admiring of items donated by local residences and their work Anya Groner planted by students and their parents; a native plant area to be used for teaching children about identifying, using, and planting native plants and vegetables; an herb garden consisting of both edibles preparation and cooking of the produce of the large summer harvest with their and ornamentals; a fl ower garden, which they raise in the garden. families. will attract benefi cial insects and pro- The summer 2008 pilot program was There is a desire to expand the pro- mote aesthetic enrichment; and a vege- a great success. The students eagerly an- gram in 2009, with a focus on com- table garden, which will provide the bulk ticipated their daily garden experience, munity involvement. Volunteer oppor- of the students’ learning experience. and while this was most of the the par- tunities exist this summer for anyone Although not offi cially certifi ed, the ticipants’ fi rst time in a garden, others willing to donate time to work with the Teaching Garden adheres to and pro- brought a previous cultural appreciation students, and individuals with previ- motes organic methods of plant produc- of gardening from growing up spending ous gardening experience are welcome tion in order to educate students on the time helping to tend their families’ plots to assist in program and activity plan- benefi ts of environmental sustainabil- at home. The garden produced a wide ning. Funding donations are also wel- ity and proper stewardship of the land. range of vegetables, herbs, and fl owers, come. Anyone interested in participat- There are plans to eventually expand including fi ve varieties of heirloom to- ing in the Oxford Boys and Girls Club the learning experience into the Boys matoes, local favorites such as squash Teaching Garden can contact me at and Girls Club’s kitchen by implement- and okra, and several types of fl owers. [email protected]. ing curriculum that promotes healthy Students made weekly donations to the eating options through the students’ local food bank and enjoyed the rest Cale Nicholson

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 5 Southern Studies Alumni and Their New Jobs

In hard economic times, it is easy to Becca Walton Evans (MA 2008) is the imagine that new graduates may have development coordinator for the Georgia diffi culty fi nding jobs they want. The Historical Society in Savannah. Sarah happy news is Southern Studies gradu- Abdelnour (MA 2008) took a position ates continue to fi nd new and interest- as operations logistics associate at Teach ing positions. Here is a short albeit in- for America in New York City. Miranda complete list of some of the program’s Cully (MA 2008) teaches school in graduates and the positions they have Oxford while also working at Living Blues, taken within the past year. and Mark Coltrain (MA 2008) has taken Mary Margaret Miller (MA 2007), with a job in the library at Central Piedmont a graduate degree in Southern Studies and Community College in Charlotte. Laura an undergraduate major in journalism and Anne Heller (BA 2000) has started work minor in Southern Studies, seems ideal at a new position as archivist/librarian Mary Margaret Miller for her new position as director of the at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Program of the Mississippi Arts Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Commission in Jackson. A Greenwood Katherine Huntoon (MA native, she has moved back to Mississippi 2007) has a new position Hicks Wogan after some time working in communica- as director of exhibition tions in Nashville. Teresa Parker Farris programming at the Visual (MA 2005) is the marketing coordinator Arts Center of Richmond. at the Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane in Bland Whitley (MA 1996) New Orleans, where she is teaching classes moved from Richmond to on folklife in Louisiana. Governor Bobby Princeton to work for the Jindal recently appointed her to serve on Thomas Jefferson Papers. the Louisiana Folklife Commission. Here Ellie Campbell (MA 2006) on campus, Aaron Rollins, a current has returned from England master’s student, will become a recruiter to Oxford, where she works for the University of Mississippi Graduate in Special Collections School. at the John D. Williams Hicks Wogan (MA 2008) is working Library. Rebecca Domm in Washington, D.C., at the Newseum, (MA 2008) is interning for a law fi rm in Bert Way (MA 1999) is preparing his where he researches and writes exhibits. Nashville, and numerous alumni are ei- work on Southern environmental his- ther lawyers or lawyers in training. Joyce tory for publication while he has a post- Miller (MA 1992) has moved to New doctoral fellowship at the University of Orleans, where she is helping organize South Carolina. Molly McGehee (MA KnowLA: The Online Encyclopedia of 2000) teaches English at Presbyterian Louisiana for the Louisiana Humanities College in South Carolina, and Kerry Center. Taylor (MA 1998) is teaching history at the Citadel. Anne Evans Bland Whitley (MA 2000) teaches writ- ing at Metropolitan State College of Denver. We are happy to say that Elizabeth Boyd (MA 1989) re- turned to the University of Mississippi as visit- ing assistant professor of Southern Studies for the Beth Boyd spring semester 2009. Some Southern Studies alumni who do not have

Page 6 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Joyce Miller Laura Anne Heller

Molly McGehee new jobs have new books. Amy Schmidt Racial Reconciliation. Joel Rosen (MA John T. Edge (MA 2002) is general (MA 2007) is associate editor of The 1993), who went from Southern Studies editor of the Cornbread Nation series, Civil Rights Reader, a project visiting to a PhD in sociology, is coeditor of a which recently published its fourth vol- scholar Julie Buckner Armstrong devel- new book, Reconstructing Fame: Sport, ume, and Jimmy Thomas (MA 2007) oped at the William Winter Institute for Race, and Evolving Reputations, and is managing editor, working under Anne Percy (MA 1994) has Charles Reagan Wilson, of The New Teresa Parker Farris recently published her Early Encyclopedia Southern Culture, which History of Oxford, Mississippi. has new volumes on music, politics and Sally Graham (MA 1992) pro- law, and agriculture and industry, with duced a series on world ecology gender on the way. for CNN International. Amy Other alumni are no doubt doing Wood (MA 1995) is the au- fascinating things in their professional, thor of Lynching and Spectacle: personal, and creative lives, and they Witnessing Racial Violence in should feel free to send us their news. America, 1890–1940, to be Also, please visit the “Alumni” section published this spring in the of the Center’s Web site for more on our New Directions in Southern graduates. Studies series at UNC Press. Here at Barnard Observatory, Ted Ownby Mark Coltrain News of Current Undergraduate SST Students Matt Hopper became the second stu- dent to win the Robert C. Khayat Scholarship, and in the fall Jennifer Lawrence became Miss Ole Miss.

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 7 MISSISSIPPI DELTA LITERARY TOUR, MARCH 22–26

The Mississippi Delta Literary Tour, set for March 22–26, Noon Lunch at the Cutrer Mansion 2009, will again travel across the Delta countryside explor- 1:00 p.m. Program at Cutrer Mansion ing the region’s rich literary, culinary, and musical heritage. “Tennessee Williams,” talk by W. Kenneth The tour will be based at the Alluvian Hotel in downtown Holditch Greenwood and will travel to Indianola, Clarksdale, and 2:00 p.m. Bus tour of Clarksdale by Panny Mayfi eld. Greenville, making stops along the way in the communities Tour of St. George’s Episcopal Church. Talk on of Money, Tutwiler, and Merigold. Tennessee Williams’s work by John Pritchard. The Delta tour is $575 per person for all program activi- Walking tour of Downtown Clarksdale. Visit ties, eight meals, and local transportation. The fee does not Cathead Records. Visit Delta Blues Museum include lodging. Remember to sign up early. Only a limited 5:00 p.m. Tennessee Williams porch plays at Panny number of places are available, and they will go fast. Mayfi eld’s house Group accommodations are offered at the Alluvian, in 6:00 p.m. Dinner at Panny Mayfi eld’s House downtown Greenwood (www.thealluvian.com). Rooms 8:00 p.m. Visit Po’ Monkey’s at the Alluvian require a separate registration. Standard rooms are priced at a discounted rate of $170. Call 866- WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 - GREENVILLE 600-5201 and ask for the Literary Tour rate. Also call the 8:00 a.m. Alluvian Breakfast hotel to inquire about rates for luxury rooms and suites. 9:00 a.m. Depart for Greenville Additional rooms have been set aside at the Greenwood Best 10:00 a.m. Greenville Bus Tour, led by Mary Dayle Western, 662-455-5777, or the Hampton Inn, 662-455-7985. McCormick, ending at William Alexander Percy Memorial Library. Welcome by Franke SUNDAY, MARCH 22 - GREENWOOD Keating. View Greenville Writers Exhibit and 3:00 p.m. Registration—Alluvian Jane Rule Burdine’s Photography Exhibit 4:00 p.m. Welcome by Jimmy Thomas at Turnrow Book 11:00 a.m. “Greenville Writers,” Company talk by W. Kenneth Holditch Reading by John Pritchard Noon Lunch at the Home of Billy and Lisa Percy 6:00 p.m. Dinner at Delta Bistro 1:30 p.m. E. E. Bass / Greenville Arts Council. Welcome by Kathryn Lewis. “The History of MONDAY, MARCH 23 - INDIANOLA Greenville,” talk by Hugh McCormick 8:00 a.m. Alluvian Breakfast 2:00 p.m. “Hodding Carter Jr.: His Greenville Legacy,” 9:00 a.m. Depart for Indianola panel with Curtis Wilkie, moderator; Hodding 9:30 a.m. Bus tour of Indianola by Scott Barretta, with Carter III, Jere Nash, Julia Reed additional comments by Steve Yarbrough 3:00 p.m. Readings by Charlotte Hayes, Gayden 10:00 a.m. “The Delta Blues,” talk by Scott Barretta Metcalfe, John Pritchard, and Steve Yarbrough Guided Tour of B. B. King Museum by Scott 4:00 p.m. William Alexander Percy graveside reading Baretta by Mary Dayle McCormick. Marathon book Noon Lunch at Club Ebony signing at McCormick Book Inn with Marion 1:00 p.m. Talk on Craig Claiborne by Marion Barnwell Barnwell, Jane Rule Burdine, Hodding Carter III, 2:00 p.m. Reading by Steve Yarbrough Maude Schuyler Clay, Maggie Dunlap, William 3:00 p.m. Return to Greenwood Dunlap, W. Kenneth Holditch, Franke Keating, 4:00 p.m. Art Tour of Alluvian by William Dunlap Gayden Metcalfe, Jere Nash, John Pritchard, Delta Photography Slideshow by Maude Julia Reed, Curtis Wilkie, and Steve Yarbrough Schuyler Clay 5:30 p.m. Cocktails at Home of Clarke and Judy Reed 5:30 p.m. Depart for Carrollton 6:30 p.m. Dinner at Doe’s Eat Place 6:00 p.m Dinner at Carroll County Market, 8:00 p.m. Depart for Greenwood with Martha Foose THURSDAY, MARCH 26 - OXFORD CONFERENCE TUESDAY, MARCH 24 - TUTWILER, FOR THE BOOK CLARKSDALE, AND MERIGOLD 8:00 a.m. Alluvian Breakfast 8:00 a.m. Alluvian Breakfast 9:00 a.m. Depart for Oxford (1.5 hours) 9:00 a.m. Depart for Clarksdale—Luther Brown and Oxford Conference for the Book, dedicated Henry Outlaw, tour guides. Visit Little Zion to Walter Anderson on the University of Church and Robert Johnson’s Grave Site. Mississippi campus, March 26–28 Drive through Money 10:00 a.m. Visit Tutwiler Community Education Center Register for the tour by calling 662-915-5993 or going to for Gospel Music www.oxfordconferenceforthebook.com.

Page 8 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Jimmy Thomas Talks about the Mississippi Delta Literary Tour Jimmy Thomas grew up in the towns of in Clarksdale, Club Ebony in Leland and Greenville in the Mississippi Indianola, and Robert Johnson’s Delta, studied literature and philosophy at gravesite outside of Money. And the University of Mississippi, and worked for we always go to Tutwiler for gos- Guideposts magazine in New York before pel music. returning to Oxford in 2003 as managing edi- The central focus is always the tor of The New Encyclopedia of Southern literature of the place we’re visit- Culture. He is coordinator of the Mississippi ing, but we spend a lot of time Delta Literary Tour sponsored by the Center talking about—and sampling— for the Study of Southern Culture. When Jimmy Thomas music and food, as well as Delta asked about the origins of the Delta Tour, this at Club Ebony in history. At this point we could is what he had to say: Indianola, Mississippi almost rename the tour some- thing like the Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta is a place that we Hayes have recently brought particular Cultural Tour, but it has gotten study pretty closely here at the Center, in renown to the Greenville book scene so popular that we’d hate to confuse part because of our geographical proxim- with their bestselling Offi cial Southern things. And really, the focus does remain ity to the region but more so because it is Ladies’ Guide series. on the literature. Like William Faulkner just so rich with what folks think about By 2003, folks here at the Center had wrote in his novel Absalom, Absalom!, when they consider “Southern culture.” been thinking for some time about how “Tell about the South. What’s it like I mean, the food in the Delta includes we could promote and bring people from there. What do they do there. Why do some really iconic Southern fare, such as far away to the Delta, to have them in- they live there. Why do they live at all.” barbecue, soul food, catfi sh, and hot ta- teract with the culture and the people, I think that’s what Delta writers do best, males, as well as some foods that might and in turn step into a place that they and I think that’s what we’re trying to do not immediately leap to someone’s mind had perhaps only read about or seen in by conducting this tour—tell about the who’s not from Mississippi, including a lot the movies. Back in early 2003, after the Delta. What it’s like there, what folks of ethnic foods, like Italian, Chinese, and Southern Foodways Alliance began its do there, and even give a glimpse into Lebanese cuisine. These ethnic groups successful “eating” tour of the Delta be- what’s like to live there. have been in the Delta for generations, fore SFA’s annual symposium in Oxford, We generally have between 20 and 30 and they’ve been living and cooking Ann Abadie, the associate director here folks sign up for the tour, and they come there so long that they’re really a part of at the Center, approached me and Amy from across the U.S. to attend—from the fabric of the Delta. Evans, who has done a lot of great work San Francisco to Connecticut to North In addition to the food there’s, of course, by conducting interviews and gathering Carolina and Georgia. We always en- the blues and gospel music. One can’t talk oral histories of Delta restaurant owners, courage the public to attend the lectures, about the Mississippi Delta without men- cooks, and tamale makers, about putting which are open without charge. I think tioning the blues. The blues is certainly together a literary tour of the area. We that even the locals who attend the talks one of the region’s biggest contributions based the tour out of Greenwood since stand to learn a little something about to Southern culture, and the feeling you it was easy to get to and was home of where they live, because the sharing of get when you listen to the blues is almost the new Alluvian Hotel, developed by ideas and knowledge is what the tour is palpable in the Delta. Viking Range, an early sponsor of SFA really based on. That’s the central no- Then there’s the literature. Mississippi and the Center. tion regarding scholarship, I think—the is arguably the nation’s most prolifi c state The fi rst literary tour was in 2004 gathering, interpretation, and sharing of in terms of producing great literature, and and included the towns of Greenwood, facts and ideas—and that’s something it shouldn’t be surprising that a large num- Greenville, and Clarksdale. We’ve re- we’re trying to do with the tour. But it’s ber of authors come from the Delta. A turned to all three towns each year since, not so scholarly that it’s not also “fun.” place so rich in history and culture almost but we’ve also traveled to Cleveland, We Delta folks have a unique sense of couldn’t help but inspire such creativity. Carrollton, Yazoo City, Indianola, community and hospitality, and there’s Greenville, in particular, has produced— Merigold, and Tutwiler in various years. a lot of visiting that goes on between and continues to produce—an impressive We always focus on writers from each Deltans and our guests on the tour. In number of talented writers, including ev- town and, naturally, libraries and book- that way, I think those who come to the eryone from William Alexander Percy, stores, such as McCormick Book Inn, Delta get to experience something that David Cohn, and Shelby Foote to Ellen are ideal destinations for a literary tour. they wouldn’t be able to do by reading a Douglas, Julia Reed, and Beverly Lowry. But we’ve also visited a number of blues book. It’s pretty special, but then again, Writers Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte sites, such as the Delta Blues Museum the Delta is a pretty special place.

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 9 OXFORD CONFERENCE FOR THE BOOK, MARCH 26–28

The conference is open to the public without charge. To 1:30 p.m. Poetry: Readings and Remarks in Celebration assure seating space, those interested in attending should of National Poetry Month; Ann Fisher-Wirth, preregister. Reservations and advance payment are required moderator; Camille Dungy, Jimmy Kimbrel for the optional cocktail buffet on Thursday ($50). All 2:30 p.m. Eudora Welty’s Collected Stories and 100th proceeds of the cocktail buffet will go toward supporting the Birthday Celebration conference and are tax deductible. Participants are invited Pearl McHaney, moderator; Peggy Whitman to make additional tax-deductible contributions to help Prenshaw, presenter support the conference. The John Davis Williams Library 3:30 p.m. “Portraying Politicians”: Curtis Wilkie, mod- will host a light lunch at noon on Thursday, March 26, for erator; Hodding Carter III, David Maraniss, the Walter Inglis Anderson exhibition and talk. To register Julia Reed for the conference, call 662-915-5993 or go to www. 5:00 p.m. Book and Author Promotion: Margaret- oxfordconferenceforthebook.com. Love Denman, moderator; Lynda and Jim O’Connor, presenters THURSDAY, MARCH 26 7:00 p.m. Open Mike: Poetry & Fiction Jam: Alicia Thursday’s luncheon program will be at the John Davis Casey and Corinna McClanahan, moderators Williams Library on the University campus; all other program sessions on Thursday will be at the Lyric Theatre, SATURDAY, MARCH 28 located at 1006 Van Buren Avenue, two blocks west of the Program sessions on Saturday will be at the Nutt Auditorium Oxford Square. on University Avenue. 10:00 a.m. Registration Begins: Barnard Observatory 9:00 a.m. “The Endangered Species: Readers Today 11:30 a.m. Exhibition Walter Anderson and World and Tomorrow”: Elaine H. Scott, moderator; Literature Claiborne Barksdale, Pamela Pridgen, Trenton John Anderson, curator; Jennifer Ford, Lee Stewart moderator; Patricia Pinson, comments 10:00 a.m. “Writing after Katrina”: Ted Ownby, mod- Noon Lunch hosted by Julia Rholes, Dean of erator; Emily Clark, Jerry W. Ward Jr., Joyce University Libraries Zonana 1:30 p.m. Welcome: Richard Howorth, Mayor 11:00 a.m. Readings and Remarks: Jesse Scott, moderator; Walter Anderson Overview: Christopher Major Jackson, Deborah Johnson Maurer, presenter Noon Lunch – on your own 2:30 p.m. Walter Anderson Panel: William Dunlap, 2:00 p.m. “Reviewing Books in Cyberspace”: J. Peder moderator; Patti Carr Black, Seetha Srinivasan Zane, moderator; John Freeman, Haven 3:30 p.m. Walter Anderson Panel: JoAnne Pritchard Kimmel, Lydia Millet Morris, moderator; Bill Anderson, John 3:00 p.m. Readings and Remarks: Lyn Roberts, modera- Anderson, Leif Anderson, Mary Anderson tor; Jack Pendarvis, John Pritchard, Steve Pickard Yarbrough 5:30 p.m. Thacker Mountain Radio; Jim Dees, host; 4:00 p.m. “News, Novels, and the Sport of Books”: The Yalobushwhackers, house band; Visiting Richard Howorth, moderator; Leonard Authors and Musicians Downie Jr., John Freeman, Terry McDonell 7:00 p.m. Dinner with the Speakers: Isom Place 6:00 p.m. Book Signing: Off Square Books (Reservations Required)

FRIDAY, MARCH 27 ELDERHOSTEL FOR BOOK CONFERENCE Program sessions on Friday morning will be at Fulton Chapel on PARTICIPANTS the University campus; program sessions at 1:30, 2:30, and 3:30 An Elderhostel program will take place during the 2009 p.m. on Friday will be at the Lyric Theatre, located at 1006 Van Oxford Conference for the Book. Cost is $597 per person, Buren Avenue, two blocks west of the Oxford Square. The 5:00 double occupancy, for conference programming, a special and 7:00 p.m. sessions will be at Off Square Books. Elderhostel-only session with a Faulkner expert, tour of 9:00 a.m. Literature for Young Readers 1: Rosemary Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak, four nights’ lodging, all meals Oliphant-Ingham, moderator; from dinner March 25 through breakfast March 29, and local Readings/Remarks: Trenton Lee Stewart transportation. Elderhostel participants must be 55 years old 10:30 a.m. Literature for Young Readers 2: Susan or older or traveling with someone at least 55. To register, call Phillips, moderator; Readings/Remarks: toll-free, 877-426-8056 and ask for program 12317-032509. Jay Asher For information, call program coordinator Carolyn Vance Noon Lunch – on your own Smith in Natchez, 601-446-1208, or e-mail her at Carolyn. [email protected].

Page 10 Winter 2009 The Southern Register The 16th Oxford Conference for the Book celebrates the life and legacy of Mississippi Gulf Coast artist, author, and naturalist Walter Inglis Anderson (1903–1965) on the opening day with authors, scholars, and family members talk- ing about Anderson’s life and work. The J. W. Williams Library is sponsoring Walter Anderson and World Literature, an exhibition curated by the artist’s son John Anderson. The Department of Theatre Arts is offering three performances of The Passions of Walter Anderson, drawing on the artist’s letters, travel logs, and stories to celebrate his art and the profound inspiration his work provides artists.

PERFORMANCES

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee and dramatized by Christopher Sergel. Wednesday, March 25–Saturday, March 28, at 8:00 p.m., Sunday, March 29, at 2:00 p.m., Fulton Chapel. Special Matinee for Local Schools Thursday, March 26, at 10:00 a.m. Showing the segregated South of 1930s Alabama through the eyes of Scout Finch, one of American literature’s most be- loved characters, this is a story about prejudice and the cour- age and character of those who rise above it. “. . . a classic of moral complexity and an endlessly renewable fund of wisdom about the nature of human decency.” —Time

Walter Anderson and World Literature The Walter Anderson Project “Along with thousands of paintings, sculptures, block The Walter Anderson Project is a performance event in honor prints, and writings, Walter Anderson (1903–1965) creat- of the life and work of one of the fi nest and most prolifi c art- ed over 9,500 pen-and-ink illustrations of scenes from Don ists of the 20th century. Conceived, produced, and performed Quixote, Paradise Lost, Pope’s Iliad, and Bulfi nch’s Legends of by faculty and students of the Department of Theatre Arts, Charlemagne. He also drew inspiration from such sources as the Lott Leadership Institute, and some members of the Ole Paradise Regained, Temora from The Poems of Ossian, The Rime Miss Forensics Team, this piece celebrates Anderson’s work of the Ancient Mariner, Alice in Wonderland, and Darwin’s The through dance, music, movement, and, most importantly, his Voyage of the Beagle.” own words. The title of the performance is The Passions of —from Illustrations of Epic and Voyage, edited by Redding S. Walter Anderson. Through Anderson’s letters, travel logs, and Sugg Jr. (University Press of Mississippi, 2006) stories, we celebrate not only his art but the profound inspira- tion his work provides us as artists. Walter Anderson “is Mississippi’s greatest artist . . . [and] was Please join us in Meek Auditorium for this unique event. also a poet and a writer who attempted to interpret the natural We are honored to share it with you at 7:30 p.m. on Friday world of the Gulf Coast. . . . At his death 82 volumes of his and Saturday, March 27 and 28, with a special Sunday mati- journals were discovered. The Horn Island Logs of Walter Inglis nee at 2:00 p.m. on March 29.Tickets are general seating and Anderson (1973) contains portions of these journals, mostly are free; they can be reserved at the UM Box Offi ce. The UM written on Horn Island. A revised edition was published in Box Offi ce will also accept donations to be given to the Walter 1985; both were edited by Redding Sugg Jr.” Anderson Restoration Project, which is working to restore —from Touring Literary Mississippi by Patti Carr Black and Anderson’s artwork that was damaged in Hurricane Katrina. Marion Barnwell (University Press of Mississippi, 2002) Rhona Justice-Malloy, Chair and Professor of Theatre Arts, The University of Mississippi.

University of Mississippi (UM) Box Offi ce Telephone: 662-915-7411.  Web: www.olemiss.edu/depts/tickets/

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 11 Denman to Lead Writing Workshop Last November, Margaret-Love Denman Perry Smith The biggest lesson she tries to teach is was lucky enough to spend fi ve weeks that a writer doesn’t get it right the fi rst as a fellow at Hawthornden Castle time and revisions are always necessary. International Retreat for Writers in “I’m constantly reminding students that Midlothian, Scotland. The castle over- the difference between good writing and looks the valley of the river North great writing is rewriting.” Esk, just to the south of Edinburgh. “The students have made remarkable Comprised of a 15th-century ruin, with progress. I’m on campus in Tupelo and a 17th-century L-plan house attached, Southaven two days a week and I’m also Hawthornden has been restored and, online. My real job is to make it so that since 1982, has served as a writers’ re- I don’t have a job—so the students get treat. The retreat houses fi ve writers at good enough that they don’t need me.” a time, from any part of the world. “The Denman said that she hopes to add accommodations were lovely,” Denman teaching assistants for each of the writing said. “We were in the middle of no- centers so that help is available both on- where, with no phone and no internet.” site and online. “Our students often have But Denman thrived in the secluded at- other jobs and kids, and they may have mosphere. “I fi nished my book and did Margaret-Love Denman had freshman English 15 years ago, but a revision,” she said. they’re quite serious and want to learn. Other fellows included a Japanese professor of English. From 1993 through They’re to be greatly admired because poet, a novelist from Cornwall, England, 2007, she directed the University’s cre- what they’ve chosen certainly is not easy a playwright, and another poet. Previous ative writing program. In 2001 she and and takes genuine commitment.” Hawthornden Fellows include Les Chicago writer Barbara Shoup compiled Denman will also revisit a writing work- Murray, Alasdair Gray, Helen Vendler, Novel Ideas: Contemporary Authors Share shop at the 2009 Oxford Conference for Olive Senior, and Hilary Spurling. the Creative Process, a collection of in- the Book, which she taught in 2007. The “We talked about work, and it was so terviews with 23 well-known authors, daylong workshop, titled “Mining Your delightful because the average person including Richard Ford, Lee Smith, Raw Materials,” is open to 20 writers and is not interested in hearing about the Michael Chabon, Tony Hillerman, Wally is set for Wednesday, March 25, at the writing process,” Denman said. “It was Lamb, Sena Jeter Naslund, and Alice Downtown Grill on the Oxford Square. nice to have someone else who knows McDermott. The attendees discuss language and per- about looking at a sentence all day and After many years of snowy New spective as well as their own projects. wondering if it’s in character.” Hampshire, Denman decided she was “My goal for the day is to allow each Denman, who is originally from ready to return to the South. The South author a chance to look at whatever he Oxford, received her BA (1961) and MA was also ready for her to return, with a or she brings to the workshop, to look (1966) from the University of Mississippi. position as the coordinator for the off- at it as a work in progress and to de- In 1990 Viking published her fi rst novel, campus writing center for the satellite velop a strategy for moving ahead with A Scrambling after Circumstance, which campuses of Ole Miss in Southaven and the work. A writer needs to be able to was released by Penguin in 1991 in its Tupelo which began in January 2008. hear what is helpful for his work, use it Contemporary American Fiction series. Denman said her work so far this se- or not. I trust that the day spent talking The novel was nominated for both PEN/ mester has been interesting. “Most of the about writing and looking at the work Faulkner and PEN/Hemingway awards. students there are nontraditional,” she will send each of these writers back to She joined the faculty of the University said. “They send me a draft online and the page with ideas and enthusiasm. of New Hampshire-Durham in 1991 as a I can comment sentence by sentence.” “For me, I think teaching writing helps my own writing. I hope my stu- CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP - MARCH 25, 2009 dents fi nd the day useful, productive. Margaret-Love Denman will offer a daylong workshop, “Mining Your Raw The idea of disparate things coalescing Materials,” on Wednesday, March 25, at the Downtown Grill on the Oxford Square. into a workable whole is a wonderful The workshop is open to 20 writers. The workshop fee of $250 includes evaluation moment,” Denman said. “I’m a working of up to 20 double-spaced pages submitted beforehand, a private 20-minute session writer, I don’t pretend to have the an- with the instructor during the March 26–28 Oxford Conference for the Book, swers, I just have the strategies.” attendance at all conference events, lunch and refreshments on Wednesday, For more information about Denman’s and dinner on Thursday. Also, each registrant will receive a copy of Novel Ideas: workshop, or to register, visit the Oxford Contemporary Authors Share the Creative Process. The fee does not include lodging. Conference for the Book Web site: www. First come, fi rst served. To register for the workshop, call 662-915-5993 or go to oxfordconferenceforthebook.com. www.oxfordconferenceforthebook.com. Rebecca Lauck Cleary

Page 12 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Reasons to Read

Jay Asher’s novel, Thirteen have the chance to save her. Reasons Why, has been selected Clay walks through his neigh- for the 2009 Young Authors borhood, passing the scenes of Fair ninth-grade book, and it is the crimes committed against the perfect choice. Asher is 33, Hannah Baker and even those an avid blogger, and a fan of crimes she herself committed. In young adult literature. Thirteen the end, when his story is finally Reasons Why is his first novel, told, he’s possibly even more but he has written picture books confused than before. Troubled and worked at three bookstores by what he has heard, Clay ulti- and two libraries so he can safely mately makes a decision to help say he knows something about another girl. A girl who is, for the biz. When asked why he pre- now, very much alive, but has, fers to write for teenagers, Asher until the night of the tapes, re- says that “too much time writing mained only in the periphery of books for adults has a horrible, his daily life. long lasting, effect on authors— Nearly every young person it makes them dull! . . . Also, who reads this book in March teenage characters offer amaz- when it will be distributed to all ing benefits to writers. Every Oxford ninth graders—thanks experience at that age is much to generous donations by the more intense than at any other Oxford Literacy Council and point in life. Why? Two reasons: Square Books Jr.—will be con- (1) for the first time in our lives, nected to a suicide. It’s inevi- we’re viewed as ultimately re- table. A friend of a friend. A sponsible for our actions (which cousin. A boy on the baseball means we’re also responsible team. A girl across town. A for the consequences), (2) rag- classmate. The sadness and an- ing hormones. Combine both ger and pain lingers a long time, of those elements and the story writes Asher walks a fine line here. oday’sT all the way to adulthood. Jay Asher has itself . . . almost.” (and yesterday’s) teenagers are inundat- taken that lingering emotion and writ- Within the first few pages ofThirteen ed with high school drama and adoles- ten it down for a new generation. Asher Reasons Why, high school junior Clay cent angst, but there is nothing cliché has said in interviews that he got the Jensen finds a ratty cardboard box on or after-school-special about this book. idea from walking through a museum, his doorstep full of audio tapes from Yes, we have seen teen suicide before. listening to the cassette-tape woman’s Hannah Baker, a classmate who has We’ve seen sex crimes and mean girls voice through earphones. A voice with recently killed herself. “Hello boys and and testosterone-fueled slugouts. But no body. It’s my hope that the readers girls. Hannah Baker here. Live and in ste- what we haven’t seen is a cardboard of Thirteen Reasons Why will take what reo. . . . I’m about to tell you the story box full of audio tapes and the voice of they read in these episodes of one girl’s of my life. More specifically, why my life a dead girl. A dead girl determined to life and put them to good use. Like Clay, ended. And if you’re listening to these point fingers. I hope they will start to pay attention. tapes, you’re one of the reasons why.” “I’m not saying which tape brings you Jay Asher will talk to the ninth-grade The novel is told in 13 chapters and into the story,” Hannah tells her listen- students at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, March each chapter deals with an event dur- ers. “But fear not, if you received this 27, at Fulton Chapel. He will also sign ing Hannah’s teenage years, since lovely little box, your name will pop up.” his book at Square Books Jr. that af- she moved to the small town she and Along with Clay, the reader wonders ternoon and at Off Square Books on Clay and the other 12 “reasons” have how he will ultimately fit into Hannah’s Saturday, March 28. Asher is working shared since middle school. The sto- story. He wracks his mind to think of a on another novel for teen readers, but ries range from innocent first kisses on time he hurt her, but all he can man- his fans can keep up with him in the the playground to queen-bee bullying age to come up with is that he might meantime at www.jayasher.blogspot. and backstabbing best friends. Among have actually loved her. Little by little com. the more serious episodes are date rape he unearths these feelings and comes Sally Cassady Lyon and the consequences of drunk driving. to terms with the fact that he’ll never

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 13 O’Connors Offer Book and Author Publicity Session

So, you’ve written the book and found coming fear, and the pros and cons of a publisher. Now what? For many au- hiring your own publicist. thors, the writing and editing are the Lynda and Jim O’Connor have oper- easy parts. But getting copies book ated their own public relations fi rm in to reviewers? Writing press releases? Chicago for 20 years and have special- Hiring a publicist? Not all publishing ized in promoting books and authors houses, probably only a handful of since 2006, beginning with Jim’s book, them, have their own in-house pub- Cuss Control: The Complete Book on licity departments. It’s up to you the How to Curb Your Cursing. Cuss Control writer to beat the pavement and get took the duo to over 100 television the word out yourself. programs, all the way from Oprah to Fear not, dear writer! At this year’s the O’Reilly Factor. Their clients call Oxford Conference for the Book, the O’Connors “tireless, tenacious, cre- Lynda and James O’Connor, who Jim and Lynda O’Connor ative, enthusiastic and dedicated.” operate a husband-and-wife public We look forward to welcoming Lynda relations fi rm in Chicago, will lead and James O’Connor to the 2009 a workshop titled “Promoting Your Oxford Conference for the Book. They Book and Yourself.” The O’Connors will media, and explore creative ways to get will appear Friday, March 27, at 5 p.m. discuss effective ways to acquire media favorable exposure. In addition, Lynda at Off Square Books. coverage beyond book reviews, explain and Jim will cover such topics as using how to fi nd and contact members of the the Internet and viral marketing, over- Sally Cassady Lyon Book Conference Panels Address Politics, Reading, Book Reviews, Writing Journalist Curtis Wilkie will discuss Orleans; Joyce Zonana, author of Dream Freeman, recently named American “Portraying Politicians” with authors Homes: From Cairo to Katrina, an Exile’s editor of the British literary journal Hodding Carter III (The Reagan Years, Journey; and Jerry W. Ward Jr., whose Granta, will also be on fi nal panel of The South Strikes Back), Julia Reed (Queen newly published memoir, The Katrina the day, “News, Novels, and the Sport of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Papers, combines intellectual autobiog- of Books,” moderated by Oxford may- Phenomena, The House on First Street), raphy, personal narrative, political/cul- or and Square Books owner Richard and David Maraniss (First in His Class: tural analysis, spiritual journal, literary Howorth. Other panelists for the 4 p.m. A Biography of Bill Clinton, The Prince of history, and poetry. session will be Leonard Downie Jr. and Tennessee: Al Gore Meets His Fate, and Three panels are set for Saturday Terry McDonell. Downie worked for the a forthcoming biography of President afternoon, beginning at 2 p.m. with Washington Post for 44 years, beginning Barack Obama). This panel is scheduled “Reviewing Books in Cyberspace,” as a summer intern in 1953 and serv- for Friday, March 27, at 3:30 p.m. moderated by J. Peder Zane, former ing 17 years as editor, when the news- On Saturday, at 9 a.m., educator book review editor and current “Ideas” paper won 25 Pulitzer Prizes. He is the Elaine H. Scott will moderate a panel ti- columnist for the News and Observer author of four nonfi ction books and The tled “The Endangered Species: Readers in Raleigh, North Carolina. This top- Rules of the Game, a recently published Today and Tomorrow,” with author ic is timely, since the Washington Post novel set in a newsroom in Washington, Trenton Lee Stewart talking about his recently shut down the print version D.C. McDonell was managing editor of experiences in writing for young read- of its Sunday Book World, one of the Sports Illustrated from 2002 until 2007, ers; Claiborne Barksdale giving a report last stand-alone book sections in the when he was named editor of the Sports on the work of the Barksdale Reading country, but is publishing the section Illustrated Group. A novelist (California Institute; and Pamela Pridgen telling online. Panelists will be memoirist and Bloodstock) and television writer (Miami about the Mississippi Reads project. novelist Haven Kimmel, fi ction writer Vice, China Beach), McDonell has wide Also, at 10 a.m., Center director Ted Lydia Millet, and John Freeman, former publishing experience, having served in Ownby will talk about “Writing after president of the National Book Critics various editorial and executive capaci- Katrina” with Tulane University profes- Circle and a prolifi c critic who reviews ties for Outside, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, sor Emily Clark, who is writing a book more than 100 books years a year for Smart, Esquire, Sports Afi eld, Men’s about the hurricane’s impact on New scores of publications. Journal, and Us.

Page 14 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Reading the South Delta Blues: The Life and Times Patton at Dockery’s, Robert Johnson of the Mississippi Masters Who at Three Forks, Muddy Waters at Revolutionized American Music. Stovall—but also many new facts and By Ted Gioia. New York: W. original interpretations. W. Norton & Company, 2008. Gioia’s approach to the Delta blues 449 pages. $27.95. is informed by a poetics of loss, blind luck, and contingency, a keen sense of both the turning points that made Blues Empress in Black a difference in how the music entered Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and American history (Charley Patton’s Gennett recording sessions on June 14, the Emerging Urban South. 1929, “the moment when the Delta By Michelle R. Scott. Urbana flexed its muscles”) and the fact that and Chicago: University of countless Delta musicianers, had they Illinois Press, 2008. 199 pages. too been recorded rather than merely showing up in other musicians’ awed Gender trouble, the pretext for so reminiscences, could have markedly many blues songs, is also a perdurable reshaped our sense of the tradition. undercurrent in blues scholarship, one Gioia’s greatest achievement, how- evident in the two books under review. so-called blues revival of the 1960s, ever, is his writerly ability to bring the Although a couple of obscure female gaining a huge white audience while African American performers at the performers such as Geechee Wiley and never finding much favor across the core of his study alive as a series of Mattie May Thomas surface briefly in tracks or back down home. “The fan highly individuated creative artists, Ted Gioia’s Delta Blues, the music he ex- base that supports the economic viabil- each responding to a different aesthetic plores—and brilliantly—is, as he tells it, ity of the Delta blues today,” Gioia ar- horizon, each animated by a distinct essentially an all-male club, one whose gues, “is disproportionately white, well skill set and spiritual orientation. Son members never sold many records but educated, and living outside the state House, for Gioia, is “the failed preacher were American artists of the highest or- of Mississippi.” I know exactly what he who brought his fire-and-brimstone to der. In line with received practice, he means, but it also depends on how you the pulpit of the blues, showed that barely mentions Memphis Minnie—a tell the story. this music could journey beyond the Delta blues singer and guitarist—and To Gioia’s credit, the story that he limitations of popular song, tapping says not a word about her sisters in does tell in Delta Blues has never been into powerful currents of soul-weari- blues, all of them Delta-born: Lucille told more thoroughly, judiciously, or ness and transcendence that no tune- Bogan, Lil Green, Denise LaSalle, Zora compellingly. A jazz pianist, the author smith had hitherto broached.” Skip Young, and Big Time Sarah. LaSalle, of five previous books, includingThe James becomes “the most distinctive in particular, has remained notably History of Jazz and The Imperfect Art: vocalist the idiom has yet produced. popular with a black female fan base for Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture, His mournful, epicene wail, with its dis- the last 30 years, primarily in the Deep Gioia hasn’t just synthesized the mass tinctive timbres, evoking an incongru- South. Regardless of her Delta origins, of scholarly, biographical, and auto- ous mixture of feminine and masculine and precisely because of her popularity biographical studies published since qualities, had little in common with the (which includes an annual homecom- Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues (1982), but rough-and-tumble delivery so typical ing day in Belzoni, the “farm-raised he’s interviewed a Who’s Who list of of James’s contemporaries.” Yes indeed, catfish capital of the world”), she’s ex- feuding folklorists and blues revivalists, Gioia loves him some Delta blues! But truded from the dusty, hard-luck story including Gayle Dean Wardlow, Mack these rhetorical flights are informed, of Delta blues and shifted sideways into McCormack, David Evans, Stephen every step of the way, by his thorough a well-dressed, sassy, black-owned bin Calt, and Dick Waterman, and arbi- research, musician’s deep knowledge of called “soul blues,” the better to en- trated their conflicting accounts with musical craft, and—not least—his de- able a particular kind of narrative in remarkable finesse. Readers familiar sire to shed light rather than retail the which an obscure American folk music with Palmer’s book will encounter some same old tired myths. valued by a coterie of white male col- familiar signposts—blues’ African ori- Still, there remains that nagging lectors suddenly catches fire during the gins, W. C. Handy in Tutwiler, Charley woman question, and it’s one that histo-

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 15 Reading the South continued

rian Michelle R. Scott directly address- Any drama fan would understand es at the beginning of her somewhat Broadway critic Joe Dziemianowicz’s more academic study, Blues Empress in recent remark: “The economy is more Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the troubled than a Tennessee Williams Emerging Urban South. “The representa- heroine.” Unfortunately, the economy tion of a traditional blues performer as is less resilient. The playwright died a wandering, guitar-playing adult male in 1983, but his fictional heroines still is more common in the public memory have more life in them than the global than that of a young adolescent girl. financial markets. Anika Noni Rose Why was a young girl on the street— played Maggie in last year’s African the center of the public sphere and an American revival of Cat on a Hot almost exclusively male domain?” As a Tin Roof; in December, Rachel Weisz former street musician in Harlem and was chosen as Blanche DuBois for a one who has actually played the Bessie forthcoming London production of Smith Strut on Chattanooga’s Martin A Streetcar Named Desire. Less well- Luther King Jr. Boulevard—formerly known Williams plays, and even un- Ninth Street, where Smith herself known Williams plays, have endured worked the cobblestones—I read as well, sometimes springing forth in Scott’s book with fascination, admira- surprising places. Early in the new year, tion, but also frustration. Camino Real was staged in Cardiff, A skilled researcher, Scott has la- Wales; and the first production ofThe bored mightily to flesh out the sketchy she began to work with her brother Day on Which a Man Dies, completed in picture we have of the young Bessie Andrew in front of the White Elephant 1960, took place in Chicago. “It is not Smith, before “Downhearted Blues” Saloon, the scholar is forced repeatedly every day that a dead playwright gets (1923) launched her as a national star. to couch her narrative in the condi- a world premiere,” reviewer William That fleshing-out process begins with tional—could, probably, would have Scott wryly noted. a long windup. The first two chapters been, might, may have, undoubted- But Williams is not a typical dead of Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga ly—because of the lack of certain key author. Philip C. Kolin, editor of The scarcely mention the Blues Empress, facts about Smith herself, such as where Influence of Tennessee Williams, has offering instead an extended portrait of she actually attended church as a girl. published several previous books on Chattanooga’s beleaguered but burgeon- Conjectural history, however skillfully the Mississippi-born dramatist, and ing African American community from executed, remains problematic. no one is better qualified to com- the end of the Civil War through the Still, despite this shortcoming and ment on his significance. “Despite the turn of the century. Scott argues effec- a tendency to idealize Smith as an vagaries of critical opinion,” Kolin tively, in line with Robin D. G. Kelley exemplary racial and gender subject, says, “Williams’s canon towers above and Tera Hunter, that Chattanooga’s Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga is any other American dramatist’s.” saloons, eating houses, and pool halls— an important addition to contempo- Moreover, Tennessee Williams is working-class black leisure spaces— rary blues studies, one that synthesizes, “unquestionably, the most influential helped maintain black collective morale recontextualizes, and extends the work playwright America has ever pro- even as Jim Crow legislation increasing- of a number of earlier biographers. duced.” The astounding range of his ly curtailed black mobility in the public impact on other playwrights from the sphere, offering a rowdy alternative to Adam Gussow United States is the subject of the 15 the considerably more staid houses of studies in this book. Each focuses on worship and fraternal organizations. a separate writer: William Inge, Neil When Bessie Smith enters this Simon, Edward Albee, A. R. Gurney, picture with her birth in 1892, Scott The Influence of Tennessee Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne strives to see her and her migrant fam- Williams: Essays on Fifteen Kennedy, John Guare, Sam Shepard, ily, recently arrived from Alabama, August Wilson, David Mamet, Beth as both representative and individu- American Playwrights. Henley, Christopher Durang, Tony ated, and here trouble begins to arise. Edited by Philip C. Kolin. Kushner, Anna Deavere Smith, and Even as Scott depicts Smith’s career Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Suzan-Lori Parks. Acknowledging arc, which takes her within a decade & Company, Inc., 2008. 229 that even this long roster of Broadway from the impoverished shanties of Blue pages. $39.95 paper. standouts is limited, Kolin refers the Goose Hollow to the street-side spot reader to a different assemblage of in-

Page 16 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Reading the South continued

fluences, scholars, and dramatists (no- both deeply in tune with mid-century tably Lanford Wilson and David Henry America and sharply critical of its Hwang), in South Atlantic Review for values.” Madwomen, “cinematic flash- Fall 2005, a special issue Kolin edited backs, poetic flights of rapture/ rup- on “Tennessee Williams in/ and the ture, nightmares, and violated bodies” Canons of American Drama.” appear in Streetcar and in Adrienne Some playwrights comment on Kennedy’s early plays, says Kolin. Williams directly or echo his protago- Shannon discovers “common ground” nists’ names and words in their own between Williams and August Wilson works, but Kolin and his fellow essay- in their “fiercely nontraditional and ists do not confine themselves to al- experimental playwriting.” lusion hunting. Nor do they dwell on At the annual Key West Literary the “anxiety of influence,” a phrase Seminar this January, novelist and popularized by critic Harold Bloom social critic Gore Vidal praised to describe a creative artist’s uneasy Tennessee Williams as America’s “best grappling with the inheritance of lit- playwright.” Vidal recently completed erary ancestors. Instead, these essays one of his old friend’s unfinished plays, “illustrate the varied, subtle, com- In Masques Outrageous and Austere. plex, and provocative ways Williams As Kolin remarks in The Influence of relates to these playwrights and they Tennessee Williams, Williams’s drama to him.” Kolin explains that, while Edward Albee on Tennessee Williams— seems “ubiquitous,” and his voice is some dramatists have “welcomed and An Interview.” Albee describes Williams even “posthumously proactive.” shared his characters, themes, and as “something of a sadist” in his later techniques in their works,” others years, and he bluntly observes that Glass Joan Wylie Hall have “reshaped and recast” Williams, Menagerie “would be an infinitely better “borrowing but parodying his art, play without the narrator in it.” At the sometimes with the (un)kindness of same time, he praises Williams for “the strangers.” The authors examined in reality of the characters, the music of the Barthé: A Life in Sculpture. The Influence of Tennessee Williams language,” and he comments on their By Margaret Rose Vendryes. “represent a valid cross-section of ma- shared attention to the “tragic sense of jor female and male, white and black, life,” reflected in their characters’ fail- Jackson: University Press of straight and gay, traditional and ex- ures: “The sadness of all that.” Other Mississippi, 2008. 229 pages. perimental, prize-winning dramatists essayists treat other sorrows. Sponberg $40.00 cloth. whose work, like Williams’s, has left suggests that the “itinerary of paternal or is leaving a legacy of greatness to consciousness in Williams’s tragedy” James Richmond Barthé was born in Bay the American theatre.” The essayists’ influenced Gurney’s comedy; Foster St. Louis on January 28, 1901, to a hard- critical approaches are equally varied, believes there is a “symbiosis of desire working Creole family, the only child drawing on biography, U.S. history, and death” in works by Williams and of Clemente and Richmond Barthé. feminist and queer theory, drama another Mississippi playwright, Beth He was christened in Our Lady of the history, psychology, race studies, my- Henley; Clum sees marriage as a “period Gulf Roman Catholic Church in the thology, and other frames of refer- of adjustment” in Williams and Durang; Bay and attended Saint Rose de Lima ence. Contributors include Michael for Murphy, the “artist in extremis” is a School. In Barthé: A Life in Sculpture, Greenwald, Susan Koprince, David concern of Williams’s late plays and author Margaret Rose Vendryes notes A. Crespy, Arvid F. Sponberg, Nancy Mamet’s early ones; according to Elam, his penchant for art at a young age: Cho, Thomas Mitchell, Annette J. Williams and Parks portray “sexual in- “Everyone knew that Clemente’s boy Saddik, Sandra G. Shannon, Brenda discretions and transgressions”; similarly, could draw because he showed his art Murphy, Verna A. Foster, John M. Young points to the centrality of “taboo to anyone and everyone.” Clum, Kirk Woodward, Harvey topics” in Williams and Smith. Displaying an obvious talent, the Young, and Harry J. Elam Jr. Discussions of Parks, Smith, and young Richmond Barthé was guid- In addition to his essay on the mu- other African American dramatists ed by several mentors and patrons. tual influence of Williams and Edward enhance the great value of the essay Landing in Chicago in 1924 to study Albee, Crespy (a playwright himself) collection. Comparing Williams to at the Art Institute of Chicago, “the contributed the volume’s intriguing fi- Lorraine Hansberry, Cho emphasizes only African American attending fine nal segment, “Swimming to Chekhovia: “their status as ‘social playwrights’— arts classes,” he showed two sculptures

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 17 Reading the South continued

in the 1927 Chicago Woman’s Club Exhibition that garnered plaudits and launched his career. The Civil Rights Reader: Vendryes positions her biography American Literature from Jim of Barthé through his art: “What fol- lows is a documentation and close Crow to Reconciliation. reading of Barthe’s figurative master- Editor, Julia Buckner works—his oeuvre’s biography, if you Armstrong, associate edi- will. The thematic choices he made tor, Amy Schmidt. Athens: also reflect Barthé’s psychology and University of Georgia Press, help us know more about the man as much as his subjects and objects.” 2009. 363 pages. $24.95 paper. She does chart a narrative timeline The Civil Rights Reader is a unique col- of Barthe’s life, his friends, relation- lection that uses fiction, poetry, drama, ships, homes, illnesses, and recover- and nonfiction to show a range of per- ies. All are placed alongside his work spectives on the nature of civil rights of the corresponding period. activism, the human and creative sides This much is clear about Barthé: of life for people denied those rights, his art was a critique of our culture. and the possibilities for writers who An artist is a being of highly sensi- wanted to express a range of emotions tized feeling, a scribe via art of his conceptions while at the same time over issues of race, white supremacy, emotions and intellect in response coherently and convincingly recali- African American life, struggle, sur- to the sentiment of the time. Art al- brating our societal context and frame vival, and—broadly defined—politics. ters perception to the good. Vendryes for racial perceptions. Barthé created a The Reader is a unique book re- states correctly that Barthé “took on new reality. He then nudged it further flecting the unique choices made by the challenge of the human figure as again and again through Inner Music, the editor and associate editor, who, the ultimate storyteller.” The Seeker, and Black Majesty, all when confronting questions of how to Beyond his technical mastery of the bronze sculptures cast in the 1960s. limit their topic, seem always to have male form, the 1939 bronze Stevedore After a stint in Jamaica, the expa- chosen the broadest possible defini- reset the American view of the triate returned to the United States tions of their topic. First, they defined African American citizen. Here was in poor health and finances. Barthé civil rights broadly. It has become a handsome black man, muscular and died in California in 1989. somewhat common to understand clear-eyed, naked to the waist, grasp- Barthé was revolutionary in the the civil rights movement as a long ing a rope. He was performing man- milieu of his time, and he remains effort without clear beginnings and ual labor, yet unbowed and proud. so. Vendryes summarizes the impact, without an ending. This collection At a time when black folks were de- “Barthé had a way of seeing mani- applies and demonstrates the useful- picted as subservient and ignorant, festations of important traditions ness of that approach, dividing the this sculpture lifted the day worker to in popular culture and pulling it all book into three sections, “The Rise a quietly revered place of honor, an together in commanding works that of Jim Crow,” “The Fall of Jim Crow,” iron pillar of grit, an aspiration. speak with dignity and respect.” and “Reflections and Continuing Barthé the critic used his sculpture Barthé’s art rests in the National Struggles.” The project also has a to revise our collective vision and to Portrait Gallery, in the Whitney broad definition of literature, ranging engender a forward movement in our Museum of American Art, and at the from easy-to-choose works everyone interracial dialogue. Stevedore, with entrance to Champ de Mars in Port- would expect to some more obscure his determined yet graceful carriage, au-Prince, Haiti. His sculpture is also works that may come as surprises. The disavows previous caricatures and included with the permanent collec- collection also uses a broad definition dignifies the dutiful.Stevedore is sub- tion of the Lauren Rogers Museum in of American literature, not segment- missive to no one, but intelligent and Laurel, Mississippi. ing civil rights writing into a subfield patiently clear in the message that he Hopefully, with restored interest in of African American literature. will overcome prejudice and igno- this native artist, James Richmond Editor Julie Buckner Armstrong rance through honest effort. Barthé will someday be honored in and associate editor Amy Schmidt The effect of Stevedore is meta- his home state of Mississippi. (then a Southern Studies MA stu- physical. It simultaneously evokes dent) developed this project at the and dismisses tired and unsupportable Scott Naugle William Winter Institute for Racial

Page 18 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Reading the South continued Friends Honor Barry and Susan Hannah with Creative Writing Scholarship Reconciliation, where they worked hard to develop a book Novelist and short story writer Barry The Lenhoffs spent the major- useful in thinking about both Hannah and his wife, Susan, have been ity of their careers at the University texts and settings. To show the honored by their friends Howard and of California, Irvine, where Howard signifi cance of the historical set- Sylvia Lenhoff of Oxford with a schol- is a professor emeritus of biology and tings of the texts, they began the arship endowment in their name at the Sylvia served as director of relations three sections with discussions of University of Mississippi, where Barry with schools and colleges. They retired historical backgrounds, and they Hannah is a writer in residence and to Oxford six years ago. Soon after they conclude the book with a timeline Howard Lenhoff is an adjunct biology relocated, they attended a discussion on of civil rights events. To show the professor. Hannah’s work. signifi cance of literary genres, the The Lenhoffs’ gift of $25,000 creates “We got interested, and we started section introductions also discuss the Barry and Susan Hannah Creative reading his work,” Sylvia said. “We new developments among writers Writing Scholarship in the Department called him soon after that to see about of in those periods. And to show of English. taking a class from him. He was so gra- the importance of individual cir- “Barry Hannah is really very special; cious and let us in the class, even though cumstances of the authors, a one- he’s a national treasure,” said Howard it was already full.” or two-page biography of precedes Lenhoff. “We’re hoping that this is a “As a scientist, I’d written plenty of each work of literature. seed gift that will encourage his many, academic papers,” Howard said. “But Collections of primary sources many friends and students to give some- I wanted to learn to write in a differ- tend to have their greatest use thing that will allow more students an ent style. Barry teaches that every story and longest life in undergraduate opportunity to study with Barry.” needs a beginning, middle, and an end, classes, and this volume of just “We are especially grateful to Howard and the end has got to be something 351 pages should work well in and Sylvia Lenhoff for this generous gift,” ‘wow.’ That’s his secret. . . . I’d like to classes in History, English, African said Patrick Quinn, chair of English. see the scholarship grow to provide sup- American Studies, and Southern “This scholarship will allow gifted young port to more than just one student.” Studies. The sources, even when students to study with Barry Hannah, they are excerpts of much lon- the master of the short story and one of Sonia Weinberg Thompson ger works, are long and thorough the most important writers of our time.” enough to introduce the entire work, and many of the shorter works appear here in full. At its Poets and Fiction Writers to Read at Book Conference best, the volume goes beyond the • Jay Asher, author of Thirteen Reasons Why, a book for young readers; lives in possible limits of an anthology as Los Angeles, California a collection of individual sources, • Camille Dungy teaches at San Francisco State University, author of the po- and it should be a useful and pow- etry collection What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison erful volume for many readers. • Major Jackson, author of the poetry collections Hoops and Leaving Saturn; Through the choices the authors teaches at the University of Vermont and the Bennington Writing Seminars; made and the power of the litera- poetry editor of the Harvard Review ture itself, authors often seem to • Deborah Johnson, author of The Air between Us, a novel, and several his- speak to each other. Thus, readers torical romances under the pen name Deborah Johns; lives in Columbus, may understand the work of, for Mississippi example, Langston Hughes and • Jimmy Kimbrell, 2008-2009 Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Richard Wright, Lillian Smith Mississippi; director of the creative writing program at Florida State University; and James Baldwin, Malcolm X, author of two volumes of poems, The Gatehouse Heaven and My Psychic Nikki Giovanni, and BeBe Moore • Jack Pendarvis, author of the novel Awesome and two collections, The Campbell, at least a bit better be- Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure: Curious Stories and Your Body Is cause we can read them within Changing: Stories; lives in Oxford, where he was Grisham Writer in Residence the same book, perhaps reacting at the University of Mississippi in 2007-2008 to the same issues, sometimes re- • John Pritchard, author of Junior Ray and The Yazoo Blues; lives in Memphis, acting to each other, and always Tennessee, where he has taught college-level English for more than 30 years contributing their own unique • Trenton Lee Stewart, author of two books for young readers, The Mysterious perspectives. Benedict Society and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey; lives in Little Rock, Arkansas Ted Ownby • Steve Yarbrough, author of three story collections and four novels; teaches at California State University at Fresno

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 19 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Announces Two Lifetime Achievement Award Winners in Celebration of Its 30th Anniversary

The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (MIAL) has chosen Marshall Marshall Bouldin III Bouldin III and Elizabeth Spencer as recipients of Lifetime Achievement Awards in celebration of the organiza- tion’s 30th year. The presentations will be made at the annual awards ceremony and banquet on June 13, 2009, at the Lauren Rogers Art Museum in Laurel. Awards will also be given for works shown, published, or performed in 2008 in the categories of visual arts, photography, fi ction, nonfi ction, poetry, and music com- position (classical, popular). Artists must have signifi cant ties to Mississippi and must have been nominated by an MIAL member. Judges for the various categories are chosen from outside the state. Cited as “the South’s foremost por- trait painter” by the New York Times, Mississippian Marshall Bouldin III has painted more than 800 persons from all

Sam Tata, Montreal, 1977 walks of life, including William Faulkner, Governor William F. Winter, Sister Thea Bowman, and Richard M. Nixon’s daughters Tricia and Julie. Bouldin lives in Clarksdale, where he worked on his family’s cotton farm until beginning his career as a full-time portraitist in 1956. Elizabeth Spencer has published nine novels, including The Light in the Piazza, three story collections, and her memoir of growing up in Carrollton, Mississippi, Landscapes of the Heart. The Light in the Piazza was made into a motion picture in 1962 and a musical that ran on Broadway for 504 performances in 2005–2006. According to George Bassi, director of the Lauren Rogers Art Museum (LRMA), “A highlight of the annual awards ban- quet will be the offi cial opening of an ex- hibition featuring MIAL award winners in visual arts and photography over the past 30 years. Drawn from both public and private collections, this exhibit will be on view throughout the summer of 2009 at LRMA and will be a virtual ‘Who’s Who’ of Mississippi artists.” Mark Wiggs of Jackson, vice president of MIAL and coordinator of the nomi- Elizabeth Spencer nation process, reports a grand total of 46 nominations in seven categories.

Page 20 Winter 2009 The Southern Register “We have a robust fi eld of worthy en- tries throughout all categories,” Wiggs Tennessee Williams Festival says, “most fi tting for MIAL’s 30th an- niversary celebration.” • In the category of Fiction are nomi- Set for October 16–17 nees Howard Bahr, Ellen Gilchrist, The 17th annual Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival honoring Carolyn Haines, Darden North, John America’s premiere 20th-century playwright will be held in Clarksdale October Pritchard, and Jesmyn Ward. 16–17, 2009, with Coahoma Community College as sponsor. The 2008 festival • The Nonfi ction category includes was recorded by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for a documentary Chris Asch, Douglas A. Blackmon, to be broadcast to a radio audience of 13 million. Gloria J. Burgess, Rick Cleveland, The 2009 festival will continue to explore infl uences of the Mississippi Delta Rheta Grimsley Johnson, Robert on Tennessee Williams with particular emphasis on his early play Spring Storm. McElvaine, Noel Polk, Julia Reed, Written in 1937, Spring Storm was unpublished and rediscovered in 1996 in the Maureen Ryan, and Jerry Ward. Harry Ransom Humanities Center at the University of Texas in Austin. The • Poetry nominees are Beth Ann drama, described as a precursor of Orpheus Descending, was fi rst performed in Fennelly, Brooks Haxton, Mary Ann Manhattan in 2004. O’Gorman, and Yvonne Tomek. The multifaceted Williams Festival includes a literary conference with top • In Visual Arts are Lea Barton, scholars giving presentations and leading panel discussions, fi lm screenings, live Vidal Blankenstein, Andrew Bucci, dramas, receptions and porch plays in the historic district where the playwright Gerald DeLoach, Kat Fitzpatrick, spent his childhood, and an acting competition for high school students per- Ed McGowin, Lucy Phillips, H.C. forming monologues and scenes from Williams plays. Porter, Paul Temple, and Andrew The literary conference and acting competitions take place on the CCC Cary Young. campus. Staged readings, live dramas, and receptions are scheduled at Oakhurst • Photography nominees are Jane Rule Middle School and Clarksdale’s historic district, including the Cutrer Mansion, Burdine, Will Jacks, Jane Robbins St. George’s Episcopal Church, Clarksdale Station, and the renovated Kerr, Panny Mayfi eld, Butch Ruth, Greyhound Bus Station. and Cameron Woodall. For additional information and background, visit the festival’s Web site: • Music Composition—Concert Music www.coahomacc.edu/twilliams or call CCC’s public relations department: nominees are Samuel Jones, Albert 662-621-4157. Oppenheimer, Andrew Owen, Steve Thanks to Coahoma Community College and other organizations, includ- Rouse, Logan Skelton, and Nancy ing the Mississippi Arts Commission, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Van de Vate. Rock River Foundation, and other donors, the event is free and open to the • Music Composition—Popular Music public.

nominees are Caroline Herring, Panny Mayfi eld Bobby Lounge, 3 Doors Down (Matt Roberts), and Tricia Walker. Recipients in each category will be awarded a cash prize and a Mississippi- made gift. Past winners include Walker Percy, Ellen Douglas, Willie Morris, Tom Rankin, Natasha Trethewey, Richard Ford, Samuel Jones, Lee and Pup McCarty, and Clifton Taulbert. Ann Abadie of Oxford serves as pres- ident of MIAL. Jan Taylor of Jackson is treasurer, Margaret Anne Robbins of Pontotoc is secretary, and Noel Polk of Starkville is past president. Among the founders of MIAL were William Winter, Cora Norman, Aubrey Lucas, Noel Polk, and Keith Dockery McLean. Anyone may join MIAL. For more information about joining and about attending the awards ceremony and banquet, visit the Web site, www.ms- Meeting inside St. George’s Episcopal Church following an organ recital at the 2008 festival are (from left) church organist David A. Williamson, BBC producer Carmel arts-letters.org. Lonergan, the Rev. Bo Keeler, actors Tammy Grimes and Joel Vig. Dorothy Shawhan

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 21 And Speaking Welty at 100 of Miss Welty ... April 13, 2009, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Eudora Alice Welty, Do you have a nephew who just whose Collected Stories is the Mississippi Reads selection for this year. The Eudora may be the next Wendell Berry? A Welty Foundation, the Eudora Welty Society, the Center for the Study of Southern daughter who can channel her in- Culture, the Southern Literary Trail, the Eudora Welty Review (heretofore the Eudora ner O’Connor with a flick of a pen? Welty Newsletter), and many other entities are confirming plans to celebrate the Or does the pizza boy aim for Richard Welty Centennial. Peggy Whitman Prenshaw will deliver a Centennial Address at Wright-like greatness? If so, encour- the Oxford Conference on the Book at the University of Mississippi this March. age these young people to enter stories Many of the plans are noted on the Eudora Welty Foundation Web site (www.eudo- and poems for consideration in the rawelty.org/index.html) with links for details and schedules. For example, the Eudora Center for the Study of Southern Welty Society Centennial Conference has organized more than 30 scholars, emerg- Culture’s annual Eudora Welty ing and seasoned, for 20-minute presentations. The academic conference is conflu- Awards. Schools may submit one en- ent with the Southern Literary Festival (both April 16–19 in Jackson, Mississippi) so try per category. Students should be that all can share in the celebrations: readings by Elizabeth Spencer, Richard Ford, Mississippi resident ninth through Ann Patchett, and Alfred Uhry; commentary by the Honorable William Winter twelfth graders and must sub- and Welty’s friends Patti Carr mit writing Black and Suzanne Marrs; mu- through their sic by Mary Chapin Carpenter, high schools. Kate Campbell, Claire Holley, Maximum and Caroline Herring; The length of short Ponder Heart mounted by New stories is 3,000 Stage Theater; Eudora Welty in words and of New York photograph exhibition poetry, 100 on view at the Mississippi Art lines. Winners Museum (www.msmuseumart. and nominat- org/), and more. ing schools will In Oxford, Natchez, Yazoo City, be notified in and elsewhere in Mississippi, cel- May. First place ebrations of Welty’s photographs carries a $500 and fiction will reward knowing prize and sec- and new audiences. Celebrations ond place, are also planned outside the $250, plus rec- state. In Atlanta, for example, ognition by the Georgia Center for the Book Center direc- (www.georgiacenterforthebook. tor Ted Ownby org/) will present a series of three “University in the Library” lectures on Welty, at the opening of the 2009 Faulkner and on April 13, Georgia State University will host Danièle Pitavy Souques for a and Yoknapatawpha Conference on Centennial Lecture followed by a celebration with a photograph exhibition and campus in July. Entries are due by readings from Welty’s fiction by actors Brenda Bynum and Tom Key. April 15, 2009, and are judged by Numerous publications will celebrate the Welty Centennial. The spring 2009 University of Mississippi English pro- Mississippi Quarterly will publish a special Welty issue with a dozen essays and a fessors. Applications and submission checklist of scholarship from the last 20 years. The Eudora Welty Newsletter will requirements have been sent to all celebrate the Centennial with its first issue of theEudora Welty Review, an annual Mississippi public and private high journal to be produced each spring. More than 25 of the essays written during the schools, but if you know a Mississippi 32 years of the Newsletter will be reprinted in this inaugural issue. Thereafter, EWR student currently enrolled in high will accept submissions for new critical essays and textual and bibliographical notes school outside the state or who is (www2.gsu.edu/~wwwewn/). The University Press of Mississippi is publishing two homeschooled, e-mail slyon@olemiss. Welty titles this spring: Eudora Welty as Photographer with 40 photographs by Welty edu or call 662-915-5993 for a copy. (30 without prior publication) and essays by Pearl McHaney, Sandra Phillips, and A PDF of the application will appear Deborah Willis, and Occasions: Selected Writings by Eudora Welty with stories, es- on the Web site soon for download. says, tributes, and recipes not collected in Welty’s other books. Readers of the Southern Register are encouraged to join the celebrations and to Sally Cassady Lyon contact the Welty Foundation to have their programs listed among the Centennial Events.

Pearl McHaney

Page 22 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Mississippi Reads 2009: Eudora Welty Mississippi Reads is a statewide initia- Much like the impending birth, tive to encourage schools, book clubs, Welty sets the story’s tension against and libraries as well as all readers to read the subtext of advancing time. Clocks and discuss a single work by a Mississippi backdrop the story’s action: “The ticks author. Previous choices were William of the cheap alarm clock grew louder Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses in 2007 and and louder as he buried his face against Richard Wright’s Uncle Tom’s Children her, feeling new desperation in every in 2008. The 2009 Mississippi Reads se- moment in the time-marked softness lection is The Collected Stories of Eudora and the pulse of her sheltering body.” Welty. And later, “The purse, like a little pen- Eudora Welty was born in 1909 in dulum, slowed down in his hand.” Jackson, Mississippi. Her education Truly lost and alone in a concrete city included Mississippi State College for of millions, away from the Mississippi Women in Columbus and Columbia he understood, Howard’s only recourse, University in New York City. Hired in his wracked mind, was to stop time: to photograph the rural South during “Like a flash of lightning he changed his the Depression for the Works Progress hold on the knife and thrust it under Administration, her first efforts to be pub- her breast.” lished were three photos in Mississippi: A Welty knew that Howard’s situation Eudora Welty. Kay Bell. 1950s. The Guide to the Magnolia State in 1938. Collected Stories of Eudora Welty covers, would, and still does, hold resonance Never married, Welty lived a life full from top: original edition, Harcourt Brace within contemporary culture. Surrounded of travel and friends. Mexico, Europe, Jovanovich, 1980; paperback edition, by people, yet he was alone. Commerce Ireland, New York City, and San A Harvest Book • Harcourt, Inc., 1982; and skyscrapers straddle him, yet he re- Francisco were favored spots where she paperback edition, A Harvest Book • mains jobless. In love, yet he could not toured and wrote for weeks at a time. Harcourt, Inc., 1982; British edition, provide. Far from home and a safety net, Her friendships with other writers, Penguin Books, 1983; The Library of none was cast for him to grasp. Reynolds Price, Ross MacDonald, and America edition, 1998. Marrs recounts that night, at the Elizabeth Bowen among many, were height of the civil rights violence in rich in correspondence and lasted a life- 1950s Mississippi, Welty continued time. Welty died in Jackson in 2001. In reality, the powerful prose of the to lecture at a historically black in- The definitive life story of Miss courageous Welty demands that readers stitution, “even though speaking at Welty, Eudora Welty: A Biography by think about the unheard, the unvoiced, Tougaloo involved some personal dan- Suzanne Marrs, was published in 2005. and the overlooked among them. Welty ger.” In her stories “A Worn Path” and Marrs was a close Welty friend and is a did not shy from issues of great social “The Demonstrators” her stance on ra- professor of English at Millsaps College importance. cial equality is explored. in Jackson. Included in The Collected Stories of “How do we tell a story? Our own While Welty may be best remembered Eudora Welty is “Flowers for Marjorie,” way,” writes Welty in Eudora Welty on for her short stories, she was also a prolific set in Depression-era New York City. A Short Stories, a privately published book book reviewer for the New York Times, and young couple expecting their first child she presented to friends as a 1949 New published several novels and the best-sell- finds meager existence in a one-room Year’s greeting. “A story is not the same ing memoir One Writer’s Beginnings. walk up flat. The husband, Howard, is thing when it ends as it was when it There is an overexposed, iconic im- jobless and devoid of prospects. Both he began. Something happens—the writ- age of Eudora Welty that is diminutive and his wife, Marjorie, left Mississippi ing of it. It becomes. And as a story and ultimately reductive to her work. dreaming of a better life. becomes, I believe we as readers under- For some, Welty fits easily into the ste- Their frustration is verbalized by stand by becoming too—by enjoying.” reotype of Southern grace and charm, Howard, “Just because you’re going to First Faulkner, then Wright, now the nice, stooped, white-haired old lady have a baby, just because that’s a thing Welty—how fortunate can we be as who shopped at Jitney Jungle Number that’s bound to happen . . . that doesn’t Mississippians to have these literary mir- 14 in the Jackson neighborhood of mean everything else is going to hap- rors to reflect our truer selves? To partici- Belhaven. pen and change!” pate in the statewide discussion of Miss Welty’s Collected Stories, visit the pro- gram’s Web site at www.mississippireads. The Mississippi Reads project is partially funded under the federal Library org or contact program administrators at Services and Technology Act administered through the Mississippi Library [email protected]. Commission for the Institution of Museum and Library Services. Scott Naugle

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 23 Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha “Faulkner and Mystery” • July 19–23, 2009

In one sense, of course, mystery has al- ways been a part of the Faulkner experi- ence: the mystery of a prose and a narra- tive technique that still puzzles, even as it continues to dazzle. The mystery that is the theme of the 36th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, howev- er, has to do with the apparent fascination this Prince of High Modernism had with one of the most popular forms of fi ction of his time: the mystery novel, the novel of crime and detection, of burgeoning com- plication, of suspense and violence. For fi ve days, in a series of plenary and panel presentations, Faulkner scholars Michael Gorra, Mary Augusta Jordan Professor will hold forth on the ways in which of English, Smith College Faulkner made use of the techniques of mystery writing, in the who-dunnits of America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and author of eight novels, including Give Us a Knight’s Gambit and Intruder in the Dust, the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism. Kiss: A Country Noir and Tomato Red, and the violence and legal machinations of Returning to the conference are Susan his most recent, Winter’s Bone. Sanctuary and Requiem for a Nun, the Donaldson, College of William and Mary, Other program events will include ses- unresolved puzzles of identity and mo- Richard Godden, University of California sions on “Teaching Faulkner,” conducted tive for murder of Light in August and at Irvine, Donald Kartiganer, University of by James Carothers, University of Kansas, Absalom, Absalom! Mississippi, Noel Polk, Emeritus, Mississippi Charles Peek, Emeritus, University of Appearing at the conference for the State University, and Philip Weinstein, Nebraska at Kearney, Terrell Tebbetts, fi rst time will be Hosam Aboul-Ela, Swarthmore College. Additional speak- Lyon College, and Theresa Towner, University of Houston, Michael Gorra, ers and panelists will be selected from the University of Texas at Dallas; a discussion Smith College, and Sean McCann, “Call for Papers” competition. of “Collecting Faulkner” by Seth Berner; Wesleyan University. Professor Aboul- In addition to the scholarly presenta- and an exhibition of Faulkner books, Ela is the author of Other South: Faulkner, tions there will be a special panel of fi ction manuscripts, photographs, and memora- Coloniality, and the Mariategui Tradition writers who have worked in what is loosely bilia at the John Davis Williams Library. and translator of the novel Distant Train, called the crime genre, and they will dis- There will also be guided daylong tours by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid. Professor cuss their fi ction and Faulkner’s and how of Northeast Mississippi, the Delta, and Gorra is the author of The English Novel they may relate to each other. The writ- Memphis; a picnic served at Faulkner’s at Mid-Century, After Empire: Scott, ers are Ace Atkins, the author of six nov- home, Rowan Oak; and “Faulkner on Naipaul, Rushdie, The Bells in Their els and short story collections, including the Fringe,” an “open mike” evening at Silence: Travels through Germany, and edi- Wicked City and New Orleans Noir and the the Southside Gallery. tor of the forthcoming Norton Critical forthcoming Devil’s Garden; Jere Hoar, au- Discount rates for the conference are Edition of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. thor of the novel Hit Man, the collection available for groups of fi ve or more stu- Professor McCann is the author of A of stories Body Parts, as well as TV scripts dents. Inexpensive dormitory housing Pinnacle of Feeling: American Literature and more than 40 scholarly and other is available for all registrants. Contact and Presidential Government and Gumshoe magazine articles; and Daniel Woodrell, Robert Fox at [email protected] for de- tails. There are also a limited number The 15th Annual Southern Writers, Southern Writing Graduate Conference is of waivers of registration for graduate set for July 16–18, 2009, at the University of Mississippi. Both critical and creative students. Contact Donald Kartiganer at pieces will be accepted, dealing with all aspects of Southern culture. Submissions [email protected] for details. to the conference are not limited to literary studies—we are interested in all inter- Further information on the program, disciplinary approaches to Southern culture. Scott Romine, University of North registration, course credit, accommoda- Carolina-Greensboro, will give the plenary lecture. Students whose papers are ac- tions, and travel can be found on the cepted may register for the 36th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference conference Web site: www.outreach. at a reduced rate of $100 registration fee. Contact swswgradconference@gmail. olemiss.edu/events/faulkner. com or visit www.outreach.olemiss.edu/events/faulkner for more information. Donald M. Kartiganer

Page 24 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Southern Foodways Register The Newsletter of the Southern Foodways Alliance

“What enters or leaves the doors of our bodies is the basis of morality.” —Lillian Smith

2009 Events President’s Letter

Our calendar is full. Folks are attracted to the Southern Foodways Alliance for a variety of reasons. Some Won’t you join us? of us are passionate about food history, others wax nostalgic over endangered recipes, and many enjoy the party that a bowl of gumbo or a bottle of bourbon engenders. All April 18: Potlikker Film Festival in of these things, and more, attracted me to the SFA, but what truly won me over was Washington, D.C. Look for new fi lms the organizational commitment to gathering a myriad of people at a common table. on buttermilk and catfi sh and farm- Our organization is mindful of racial and social and economic injustices. We work ing at the festival, hosted by Johnny’s to be change agents in our region. Half Shell. Registration will open on The year 2009 has just the SFA Web site in March. begun, and we’re off to a good start. At our annual Emile DeFelice June 12: Craig Claiborne Tribute Blackberry Farm dinner and Dinner, Astor Center, New York benefi t, Emile DeFelice, of City Matthews, South Carolina, was inducted into the June 13–14: Big Apple Barbecue Fellowship of Farmers, Block Party, New York City Artisans, and Chefs. During the same weekend, an auc- June 26–28: Mountain Empire: tion yielded about $60,000 Cornbread at the Carter Fold and for the SFA. This money Fast Cars in Bristol, the annual will fuel our documentary SFA summer Field Trip. Explore mu- and programming efforts. sic and food and drink as we walk Answering President the fi ne state line between Tennessee Obama’s call to service, and Virginia. Registration info avail- the Southern Foodways beall + thomas photograph able late spring. Alliance on Martin Luther King Jr. Day catalyzed an ongoing Skillet Brigade of food-focused volunteers. This effort is a way for SFA members to band together August, date TBD: Potlikker Film with other nonprofi t organizations while working toward a better South. We’ve just Festival, Athens, Georgia begun. A team in Atlanta is working with Slow Food Convivium leader (and SFA member) Judith Winfrey. In New Orleans Sara Roahen and crew are working with September, date TBD: Viking Range Share Our Strength. In Tyler, Texas, Leigh Vickery is teaching cooking classes to un- Lecture, University of Mississippi derserved children; in Nashville, Thomas Williams is working with soup kitchens. These projects refl ect important actions that give life to our mission statement. October 28–29: Delta Divertissement, This year, we celebrate foodways and musicways. We begin with a Potlikker Film Greenwood, Mississippi. Our annual Festival in April in Washington, D.C., and we follow with a Field Trip to the cra- debauch in the Delta is the ever pop- dle of country music, Bristol, Tennessee—which is, of course, cheek-to-jowl with ular prequel to the symposium. Our Bristol, Virginia. H.Q. is the Alluvian Hotel; our intent I look forward to working with the staff, the board, and membership to enhance is experiential learning. the SFA’s mark on our cultural fabric. Many thanks for the opportunity!

October 29–Nov. 1: 12th Southern Angie Mosier Foodways Symposium, Oxford, Mississippi. Our focus this year is food and music. We’ll eat, we’ll dance, and we’ll learn a few things. Introducing the Craig Claiborne On the SFA Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Foodways Alliance Bookshelf In preparation for our 2009 symposium, Craig Claiborne, a native of the Mississippi Delta, born in 1920, helped change how focusing upon the intersections of food Americans ate, how they entertained, and how they understood food. In spite of his and music, we’re stocking our bookshelves infl uence over a core component of American culture, developed during his 30-year with books and CDs. Here’s a quick look tenure at the New York Times, Claiborne is, today, underappreciated. at a few of the titles on the shelf. At an event to be staged on June 12, 2009, at the Astor Center in New York City, the SFA, along with the State of Mississippi, will celebrate his life and legacy. And Books the SFA will announce the naming of its Lifetime Achievement Award, in honor Country Music U.S.A., Bill Malone of Claiborne. Among the facets of his life to be explored by a panel of three New York City- It Came from Memphis, Robert Gordon based experts, and feted by Mississippi-based chefs, are Claiborne’s Southern up- Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country bringing, his formal culinary education, and his career as a preeminent food writer. Music in the Piedmont South, Patrick Claiborne was born in Sunfl ower, Mississippi, on September 4, 1920. Several years Huber later the family moved to the nearby Delta town of Indianola, where his mother Rhythm Oil, Stanley Booth opened a boarding house. That Southern, food-focused home environment played a paramount role in infl uencing how Claiborne later covered food. Swamp Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm Claiborne received formal culinary training at the Swiss Hotelkeepers School in and Blues, Shane Bernard Lausanne, Switzerland. Prior to that education, he earned a journalism degree from CDs the University of Missouri and tasted a number of ethnic foods while serving in World War II and the Korean War. All experiences impacted his culinary career. American Routes: Songs and Stories from Claiborne was the fi rst male to edit the food page for a major American daily. He the Road, Nick Spitzer introduced the star-rating system to the American restaurant review. He wrote Doug: A Rock Opera, the Coolies about the personalities behind the food and historical context relevant to the food. Greens from the Garden, Corey Harris We will acknowledge the numerous careers Claiborne bolstered (Jacques Pepin, Marcella Hazan, Paul Prudhomme, etc.) as well as the mark of Pierre Franey on his Too Much Pork for Just One Fork, own career. Claiborne was the fi rst widely read proponent of world foods. Southern Culture on the Skids The Unreleased Recordings (Mother’s Best Georgeanna Milam Chapman Flour), Hank Williams Egerton Prize Jury at Work

For his work in chronicling and championing the cause of civil rights in America, and for his contribution to our understand- ing of the power of the common table, the Southern Foodways Alliance has established the John Egerton Prize for Foodways Scholarship. The $5,000 prize, underwritten by an endowment, and awarded annually, recognizes artists, writers, cooks, scholars, and others whose work documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South and addresses issues of race, class, gender, and social justice, through the lens of food. The fi rst winner, to be announced this spring, will be select- ed by a juried panel of the following: • Makale Fabre Cullen, Center for the Urban Environment, New York City • Ann Cashion, Johnny’s Half Shell, Washington, D.C. • Malcolm White, Mississippi Arts Commission, Jackson • Reid Mizell, Tula Communications, Atlanta, Georgia • Kevin Young, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia John Egerton Henry Mencken Jason Ringenberg: From Scorcher to Farmer

In the mid-to-late ’80s on a solo tour in 2002, and early ’90s, Jason he noticed how much Ringenberg, a tall drink his two young daughters, of water given to sporting Addie Rose and Camille, a 10-gallon hat and star- listened to tot-geared art- spangled suit, probably lit ists like Raffi. Deciding more Southern towns afire to create a CD for them, than General Sherman. he cranked out a short Considered too country E.P. When he returned, for rock radio and too the results were in: they rock for country, the alt- loved it—as did all of country act Jason and the their friends. “These Scorchers nevertheless days, when I prepare developed a huge follow- songs, I test-drive them ing and went on to tour with that very same audi- with the likes of R.E.M., ence,” Ringenberg says. The Replacements, and “I want Farmer Jason others. Many music writ- to hearken back to a dif- ers (this one included) ferent kind of time for see Ringenberg and Co. children,” Ringenberg as founding fathers of the explains on his Web site. Americana music move- “I wanted him to sort of ment, too often attribut- feel like the wonderful ed to other Johnny-Cash- upbringing I had on the come-latelies. farm. Hopefully, listen- Of course, as an impor- ers will get some of that tant band—in September, feeling of rural life. With the group was presented the farm animals and life with the Americana Music on the farm, it’s an abso- Association’s lifetime lutely wonderful way to achievement award—they grow up. It’s definitely a were horribly mismarket- dying thing, since very ed, battled tooth and nail few people live a rural with their label for years, life anymore. It’s so sad and were finally dropped. The band broke up and folks went what’s happened to the family farm. It’s now a thing of the their separate ways (although they occasionally reunite, usually past. Even so, my dad still hangs in there. He’s in his 80s and for charity). Ringenberg went on to release a series of critically still has his 120-acre farm and his little old corn-picker and acclaimed solo pieces, and hotshot guitarist Warner Hodges be- his International 400 tractor.” came an in-demand session and touring guitarist. Ringenberg says his guise as Farmer Jason isn’t just some pass- The Jason Ringenberg biopic, as it might be played on CMT ing fancy—he’s in it for the long haul and has more offers to play or some similar network, would be the usual story of second dates than he can currently book. acts, a look at how our upbringings can rise up and reclaim “Playing these songs has allowed my creative juices to flow us even as we least expect it. You see, Ringenberg grew up on freely again,” he says. “These kids can tell when you’re not his family’s Illinois hog farm, exploring the nearby forests and genuine, or genuinely passionate, about what you’re doing. fields. His goal as a child, he says, was to be a forester. Instead, When you get down to it, there isn’t a big difference han- he became a rock and roll star with children of his own. dling a room full of drunken adults and a gang of hopped-up These days, he spends most of his time raising his new- 5-year-olds.” est creation, a children’s performer with the nom-de-rock And now both love his music. “Farmer Jason.” In this latest guise, he hopes to teach kids For more information visit www.farmerjason.com. about ecology, the natural world, Native Americans, and the land around them. Timothy C. Davis Ringenberg says he first got the idea when, about to leave An SFA Potlikker Film Fest Primer If you’ve ever had trouble explaining to your friends what the spondent’s personal favorite, the racy Hot Chicken. SFA is exactly, you should mark your calendar and prepare to Whatever the roster, attendants will be reminded why they haul them to the next SFA Potlikker Film Festival, to be held came to like this organization in the fi rst place. Using a mix- on April 18 at Johnny’s Half Shell in Washington, D.C. These ture of humor, honest camera work, and historical footage, events, sponsored by Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, offer a each documentary shines a respectful spotlight on the folks fi rst-rate introduction to the Southern Foodways sensibility. responsible for our Southern food traditions. For starters, it’s really more of a party than your typical si- “The great thing about documenting these people is that lent-in-the-dark fi lm festival experience. Guests will soak up we pay attention to the ones who don’t get highlighted, but live music, a delicious array of local vittles, cold beer, and, of have made great contributions to our culture,” fi lmmaker Joe course, some savory shots of Potlikker. York says. But the main event is a series of bite-sized documenta- The festivities will be hosted by SFA board member (and ries produced and directed exclusively by the Center for James Beard Award-winning chef) Ann Cashion at her Documentary Projects at the University of Mississippi. While Capitol Hill eating house, Johnny’s Half Shell. Cashion hopes the exact line-up is still to be determined, it will include titles that the event will not only help spread the gospel of the SFA, such as Buttermilk: It Can Help, which debuted at October’s but introduce folks to another side of D.C. Cashion says, “It’s symposium. a very Southern town. It’s a very African American town, and Buttermilk is a profi le of 2008 Ruth Fertel Keeper of the we hope this event will give people the opportunity to re- Flame winner Earl Cruze of Cruze Family Dairy in east member that.” Tennessee. Not only will you revel in the interviews of fam- If you can’t make it to the festival, remember that you can ily patriarch and consummate fl irt Earl Cruze, you’ll begin to watch these documentaries any time on the new SFA Web wonder why buttermilk isn’t a part of your daily regimen. site www.southernfoodways.com. Other items on the bill include Jones Valley Urban Farm, Matthew Graves’s tranquil and colorful account of Ashley Hall Birmingham’s own inner-city Victory Garden, and this corre-

SFA Contributors Ashley Hall, an Alabama native and lapsed journalist, sells juice in Atlanta for Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant. She is Georgeanna Milam Chapman, a native of Tupelo, associate editor of the SFA newsletter Gravy. Mississippi, wrote her master’s thesis on Craig Claiborne. Henry Mencken, a native of the South, now lives and Timothy C. Davis, associate editor of the SFA newsletter writes beyond. Gravy, is a Charlotte, North Carolina, native currently living in Nashville, Tennessee. He has written for magazines includ- Angie Mosier, SFA president, is a freelance writer and food ing Saveur, Christian Science Monitor, and Mother Jones. stylist.

Southern Foodways Alliance

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e-mail MEMBERSHIP ❏ $50 student ❏ $75 individual ❏ $100 family Please make checks payable to the Southern Foodways Alliance ❏ $200 nonprofit institution ❏ $500 corporation and mail them to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture University, MS 38677.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, VISIT US AT OUR WEB SITE: www.southernfoodways.com or call John T. Edge, SFA Director, at 662.915.5993 or via e-mail at [email protected] Call for CONTRIBUTORS Submissions Rebecca Lauck Cleary is a communications specialist in the Offi ce of Media and Public Relations at the University of Mississippi. Studies in American Culture wel- Adam Gussow, associate professor of English and Southern Studies at the comes the submission of essays on University of Mississippi, is the author of Mister Satan’s Apprentice: A Blues all aspects of American culture, Memoir, Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition, and including studies of the literature, the recently published Journeyman’s Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner’s language, visual arts, and history Mississippi to Post-9/11. of the United States, and from all Joan Wylie Hall teaches in the English Department at the University of scholarly and critical approaches. Mississippi. She is the author of Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction Because we receive so many sub- and articles on Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Grace King, Frances missions on literature, the editorial Newman, and other authors. board especially welcomes studies of art, music, theatre, rhetoric, po- Donald M. Kartiganer holds the William Howry Chair in Faulkner litical science, sociology, history, or Studies at the University of Mississippi and is director of the Faulkner and any other area related to American Yoknapatawpha Conference. In addition to his work on Faulkner, he has Studies. We will consider any essay published articles and book chapters on a number of modernist writers and that explores an interesting dimen- theorists, including Conrad, Eliot, W. C. Williams, Kafka, Hemingway, sion of American culture but are Welty, Philip Roth, Freud, Kierkegaard, and Murray Krieger. particularly eager to receive submis- Sally Cassady Lyon works at the Center, as the director’s assistant. She is a sions that approach their subjects Gulfport native and Sewanee graduate. She lives in Oxford with her hus- from interdisciplinary perspectives. band, Dalton, an orange tabby cat, Patty MacTavish, a dog, Scout, and a Our diverse readership includes daughter, Lucy Rose Lyon, born October 21, 2008. academics and nonacademics Pearl McHaney, associate professor of English at Georgia State University, from a variety of disciplines and is the editor of the Eudora Welty Review and of collections of book reviews backgrounds. We prefer essays that Welty wrote and received. This spring McHaney will publish Eudora Welty as engage in sophisticated analysis Photographer and Occasions: Selected Writings by Eudora Welty. while avoiding alienating jargon. Submissions for the October Scott Naugle is a regular contributor to the Sun Herald and other 2009 issue (32.1) must arrive by publications. He opened Pass Christian Books in 2003. Hurricane Katrina April 1, 2009. swept away the building that housed the bookstore, but not the business. The For submission requirements, new store opened in Pass Christian/DeLisle on November 1, 2006. visit our Web site: www.vmi. Cale Nicholson is a second-year student in the Southern Studies master’s edu/SiAC. program. As a graduate assistant for the Southern Foodways Alliance, he has coordi nated the Teaching Garden at the Boys and Girls Club in Oxford, Robert L. McDonald, Editor Mississippi. Studies in American Culture Department of English and Fine Arts Ted Ownby, director of the Center, holds a joint appointment in Southern Virginia Military Institute Studies and History. He is the author of Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, Lexington, Virginia 24450 and Manhood in the Rural South, 1965–1920 and American Dreams in Mississippi: [email protected] Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, 1830–1998. He is working on a book about www.robmcdonaldphotography.com the confl icting defi nitions of family life in the 20th-century South. Sonia Weinberg Thompson is a communications specialist at the University of Mississippi Foundation.

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tor and now as a new director. Writing age in the writing of my students. Worse about my predecessors Charles Wilson yet, effusive thanks risks using the lan- and Bill Ferris, Associate Director Ann guage well-dressed actors use in receiv- Abadie, and many other friends among ing awards. So, to avoid clichés, adverbs, the faculty, staff, Advisory Committee, and effusive language, let me say thanks.  alumni, students, and administrators runs the risk of the kind of clichés and Ted Ownby unnecessary adverbs that I try to discour-

The Southern Register Winter 2009 Page 29 Southern Culture Catalog

Faulkner’s Mississippi: Land into Civil Rights in the Delta Legend Journalist Curtis Wilkie in conversa- Transforms the fiction of William tion with Patti Carr Black, Emmett Faulkner’s mythical Jefferson and Till’s cousin Wheeler Parker, Sumner Yoknapatawpha into the reality of residents Frank Mitchener and Betty Oxford and Lafayette County, and Bill Pearson, Henry Outlaw of the Mississippi, with quotations from Delta Center for Culture and Learning Faulkner’s writings correlated with at Delta State University, and former appropriate scenes. The first motion Mississippi governor William F. Winter. pictures inside Faulkner’s home are ht Courtesy Photo March 29, 2006. presented along with rare still photo- Color, 60 minutes. graphs of the writer. Narrated by DVD1148 ...... $20.00 Joseph Cotton. Script by Evans

Friends ...... $18.00 Appeal Commercial Memphis Harrington. Producer, Robert D. Oesterling, University of Mississippi Center for Public Service and Continuing Studies. 1965. Scene at courthouse in Sumner in 1955 Color, 32 minutes. during the Emmett Till murder trial DVD1069 ...... $25.00 Friends ...... $22.50

“Are You Walkin' with Me?” Sister Thea Bowman, William Faulkner, and African American Culture William Faulkner Stamp Ceremony Overview of A 22-cent Literary Arts programs Sister Commemorative stamp honoring Thea presented William Faulkner was issued by the at the annual United States Postal Service during a Faulkner ceremony at the University of Conference Mississippi on August 3, 1987. The from 1980 DVD of this program includes remarks through 1989. by author Eudora Welty, Faulkner’s Produced by daughter, Jill Faulkner Summers, and Lisa N. others. Howorth, Color, 34 minutes. Center for the Study of Southern Culture, 1990. DVD1231 ...... $25.00 Color, 30 minutes. Friends ...... $22.50 DVD 1016 ...... $25.00 Friends ...... $22.50

The Eleventh Oxford Conference for the Book Poster (2001) William Faulkner and Eudora Welty Poster features Richard Wright photograph by Carl Van Vetchen. This film features Eudora Welty at the M9903 ...... $10.00 Friends ...... $ 9.00 opening session of the 1987 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. The Dain & Cofield Welty reads from her story “Why I Collection Posters Live at the P.O.” and answers ques- High quality 18" x 24" duotone tions about her work and Faulkner’s. posters featuring timeless photo- Color, 34 minutes. graphs of William Faulkner DVD1104 ...... $25.00 Friends ...... $22.50 Dain Poster M1034 . . . $18.95 Cofield Poster M1033 . $18.95 Faulkner’s World Exhibit Poster M1789 ...... $10.00

Page 30 Winter 2009 The Southern Register Books All New, Limited Number of Copies Available Southern Culture Catalog The University of Mississippi International Orders The South: A Treasury of Art and Litera- Barnard Observatory • University, MS 38677 Other video formats ture Phone 800-390-3527 • Fax 662-915-5814 may be available. This richly illustrated volume includes well- Please call for selected texts and images from more than information. Sold To: 300 years of life in the American South. Edited—and signed—by Lisa Howorth. 384 pages; 120 color, 100 black-and-white Name illustrations. Only a few copies of this 1983 publication are left. Cloth. Address B1006 ...... $150.00 Friends ....$135.00 City State Zip Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference Proceedings Country Studies in English, Volume 14 1974 conference papers by Malcolm Cowley, Daytime Phone Elizabeth M. Kerr, and David Sansing along with transcripts of discussions by Joseph Blot- ❏ Payment enclosed (check, money order, international money order in U.S. currency ner, Evans Harrington, and others. Paper. or international check drawn on a US bank; made payable to The Southern Culture Catalog) B1020 ...... $25.00 Friends .....$22.50 ❏ Charge my: ❏ Visa ❏ MasterCard Account # Studies in English, Volume 15 1975 conference papers by Cleanth Brooks, Exp. Date Signature William Boozer, Carvel Collins, Blyden Jackson, Richard Godden, and Elizabeth M. How To Order Delivery Kerr along with transcripts of discussions by By mail: Southern Culture Catalog Orders for delivery in the continental United Victoria Black, Christine Drake, Howard Barnard Observatory • The University of States are shipped by US Postal Service unless Mississippi • University, MS 38677 Duvall, Robert J. Farley, Lucy Howorth, Mary other means of delivery are requested. Orders for delivery outside the continental United McClain, Phil Mullen, William McNeil Reed, By e-mail: Credit Card orders only: States are shipped by Parcel Post. Dean Faulkner Wells, and others. Paper. [email protected] B1021 ...... $25.00 Friends .....$22.50 Shipping and Handling Costs By telephone: Credit Card orders only: United States: $3.50 for first video or other item, 800-390-3527 (Monday-Friday, The South and Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha $1.00 each additional item sent to the same 8:15 a.m.-4:45 p.m. CST) in the US. 1976 conference papers by Daniel Aaron, address. Foreign: $5.00 for each item. Michael Millgate, Darwin Turner, John Outside the US call 662-915-5993 Pilkington, Evans Harrington, Shelby Foote, Posters. United States: $3.50 for any number of Linda Weishimer Wagner, Victoria Fielden By fax: Credit Card orders only: posters sent to the same address. Foreign: Black, and Louis D. Rubin Jr. 662-915-5814 (Daily, 24 hours a day) $10.00 for any number of posters sent to the Paper B1022 ... $15.00 Friends .....$13.50 same address. Cloth B1023 ... $30.00 Friends .....$27.00 All sales are final. No refunds will be made. If an order The Maker and the Myth Return Policy 1977 conference papers by Calvin S. Brown, contains faulty or damaged goods, replacements will be made when such items Albert J. Guerard, Louis P. Simpson, Ilse Du- are returned with problem(s) noted. soir Lind, and Margaret Walker Alexander. Paper B1024 ... $15.00 Friends .....$13.50 Cloth B1025 ... $30.00 Friends .....$27.00 Item # Title/Description Qty. Price Total

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Fifty Years of Yoknapatawpha 1979 conference papers by Joseph Blotner, Order Total Michael Millgate, John Pilkington, Merle This form may Wallace Keiser, James G. Watson, Noel Polk, Mississippi residents add 7% sales tax and Thomas L. McHaney. be photocopied. Paper B1028 .. $15.00 Friends .....$13.50 Faxed orders Shipping and Handling Cloth B1029 ... $30.00 Friends .....$27.00 accepted. TOTAL

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MAKE GIFTS TO THE CENTER ON-LINE. Go to www.umf.olemiss.edu, click on “Make a Gift,” and direct funds to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Center for the Study of Southern Culture • University, MS 38677 • 662-915-5993 • Fax: 662-915-5814 www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/