The Oxford Conference for the Book and two special programs connected to it this coming spring will provide unique opportunities to study some of the state’s major authors and visit sites associated with their lives and work. The conference, set in the hometown of William Faulkner, Larry Brown, Barry Hannah, and other well-known authors, will take place for the 11th time April 1-4, 2004. The 2004 conference is dedicated to Walker Percy and will examine his literary contributions during a program that will also feature Mississippi-born authors Ralph Eubanks, Margaret McMullan, and Julia Reed. (For details, see related article that follows.) A three-day Delta tour is being planned before the conference, and afterwards will be a series of programs on Eudora Welty and tours of the garden of her home in Jackson.

The new Alluvian Hotel in Greenwood will be headquarters for talks, tours, and events focusing on the literature, history, music, and food of the Mississippi Delta. The program will begin on Monday, March 29, with overview sessions and tours of Greenwood, home of playwright Endesha Ida Mae Holland and memoirist Mildred Spurrier Topp. On Tuesday, March 30, the group will travel by bus to Greenville, home of Walker Percy, William Alexander Percy, Shelby Foote, Ben Wasson, and many other writers, including the author/photographers Bern and Franke Keating. On Wednesday, March 31, the group will go to Clarksdale for a visit to the Delta Blues Museum and tours of places connected to the life and work of Tennessee Williams. On April 1, after an Alluvian breakfast, participants will be free to travel on their own to Oxford, arriving in time to visit Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak, tour the town, have lunch on the courthouse square, and attend the book conference, which will begin that afternoon.

Following the conference, on Sunday, April 4, and Monday, April 5, literary enthusiasts are invited to Jackson for programs on Eudora Welty centered around the opening of the garden at her home on Pinehurst Street, where she lived for 76 years and which is now owned by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The first phase of MDAH’s project to develop the Welty House Museum is the restoration of the garden, where the author worked alongside her mother, Chestina Andrews Welty, and learned about many of the 150 plants and flowers mentioned in her writings. Programs on April 4-5 will include talks on several topics: Welty’s life and achievements, restoration of the house, plans for its educational programs, historic development and restoration of the garden, and the Welty Archives. There will also be readings from Welty’s work and tours of the garden and of MDAH’s Welty Archives. For those who can linger, poet William Jay Smith will read from his work and comment on his lifelong friendship with Eudora Welty. Programs celebrating the opening of the Welty garden are funded through a grant form the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Center and Viking Range Corporation are collaborating on the program on the Mississippi Delta, home of world-famous blues and literary artists and the place novelist Richard Ford describes as “the South’s South.” The Delta program is headquartered at the Alluvian, a luxury boutique hotel in Greenwood, set within walking distance of Viking Range, the Yazoo River, and historic Cotton Row and an easy drive to the literary towns of Greenville and Clarksdale. Details about the program schedule, costs, lodging, and other arrangements are available on the Web (www.olemiss.edu/depts/south) or by contacting Amy Evans (e-mail: aevans@vikingrange.com; voice mail: 662-451-1777). The Alluvian’s toll-free telephone number is 866-600-5201.

The Center and the Welty House Museum (Eudora Welty Foundation?) are collaborating on the Welty program. The Old Capitol Inn on North State Street in Jackson, headquarters for the program, is offering special rates for participants. Details about the schedule, costs, lodging, and other arrangements are available on the Web (www.mdah.state.ms.us) or by contacting Mary Alice White, Director, Eudora Welty House (telephone: 601-0353-7762; e-mail: mawhite@mdah.state.ms.us) in early 2004.

Walker Percy

Eudora Welty