A plethora of writers, publishers, and book lovers from widely varied walks of life will once again converge upon Oxford and the University of Mississippi for the Eighth Annual Oxford Conference for the Book, slated for the weekend of March 30-April 1. Readings, discussions, parties, and signings are set to take place at the three-day event, which regularly sends participants home sated, inspired, and confident in the state of letters. Among conference highlights are a tribute to one of Mississippi’s greatest writers, Richard Wright (1908-1960), in whose memory this year’s event is dedicated, and an extravaganza to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Grove Press, the illustrious publishing house that printed, and continues to print, the work of some of the 20th century’s most enduring iconoclasts, including William S. Burroughs, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Samuel Beckett, and many more.  

   Midday Friday will see the commemoration for Richard Wright, author of such American literary classics as Native Son and Black Boy. Prominent literary scholar and poet Jerry W. Ward, Jr., will deliver an address, to be followed by remarks from Wright friends Geneviève Fabre and Michel Fabre, who are among the world’s foremost scholars of African American literature, and Paul Oliver, one of the founders of modern blues scholarship. Wright wrote the introduction to Oliver’s book Blues Fell This Morning. Michel Fabre is the author of The World of Richard Wright and The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright and, with Wright’s wife, Ellen, coedited The Richard Wright Reader. Also appearing on the conference program will be recent Wright biographer Hazel Rowley.  

   The Grove Press 50th birthday bash is set for Saturday evening in Taylor, Mississippi, where attendees will enjoy the spirit of the avant-garde Mississippi style, with catfish, down-home soul music, and fireworks. Morgan Entrekin, president and publisher of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., and several authors he publishes will take part in the conference, among them novelists Jim Harrison (Legends of the Fall) and past conference favorites Stewart O'Nan (Everyday People) and Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan (Death of a River Guide).  

   Some other fiction writers who will read and speak are literary star Amy Tan, author of numerous best sellers, who appears in support of a new novel, The Bonesetter’s Daughter; Jayne Anne Phillips, the highly prized writer and author of MotherKind; newcomer David Anthony Durham, whose debut, Gabriel’s Story, is a new take on the Old West novel; William Gay, the raw and eloquent Tennessee writer with a signficant new novel, Provinces of Night; and conference mainstay Barry Hannah, the incomparable fiction panel moderator who is also slated to read from an upcoming novel, Yonder Stands Your Orphan.  

   A number of poets will discuss the craft and read from their work on Friday afternoon. Among those reading are Claude Wilkinson, so impressive at last year’s conference, and currently the John and Renée Grisham Visiting Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi; Nikky Finney, who teaches at the University of Kentucky and has published two collections, On Wings Made of Gauze and Rice; Brooks Haxton, the Mississippi poet who is receiving attention for his new translation of Heraclitus’s writings, Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus; and Dave Smith, coeditor of the Southern Review and much beloved poet whose works include The Wick of Memory and Cuba Night.  

   The Southern Review, the esteemed literary journal published at Louisiana State University, is the focus of a panel discussion Friday morning. University of Mississippi English chair Joseph Urgo will moderate the panel, which features Dave Smith, Ole Miss alumnus and Arcade Publishing editor Webb Younce, and Southern Review associate editor Michael Griffith, who will also read that afternoon from his new novel Spikes.   

   Saturday is the setting for a number of intriguing academic panels, the first of which is entitled “Writing Sexuality in and of the South.” Moderated by University of Mississippi assistant professor of English and Afro-American Studies Ethel Young-Minor, the panel will feature remarks by Jeffrey Renard Allen, whose recent novel Rails Under My Back won the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for fiction; Lasana Kazembe, a poet and spoken word artist who wrote the collection Nappy Headed Black Girls; and Reginald Martin, editor of Dark Eros and a member of the English Department at the University of Memphis. “Writing Our Southern Mothers” focuses on the matriarchal role in Southern fiction, featuring Jayne Anne Phillips, Fatal Flowers author Rosemary Daniell, and Patricia Foster, author of All the Lost Girls: Confessions of a Southern Daughter.  

   Rounding out Saturday’s discussions will be two panels concerned with education and literacy, “Our Mothers Before Us: A Link to History” and the annual panel “The Endangered Species: Readers Tomorrow and Today,” with Elaine H. Scott as moderator and remarks by Claiborne Barksdale, head of the Barksdale Reading Institute, and Kimberly Willis Holt, author of When Zachary Beaver Came to Town, the recent National Book Award winner for young adult readers. In addition to speaking at the conference, Holt will visit local schools as part of the Young Authors Fair sponsored by the Junior Auxiliary of Oxford.