Ninth Oxford Conference for the Book

To help celebrate the launching of anew Master of Fine Arts program in creativewriting at theUniversity, authors who have previously held the John and Renée Grisham Visiting Southern Writer in Residence position will return to speak and read during sessions moderated by English Department chair Joseph Urgo, starting at 1:30 p.m. Among those scheduled to return are Mary Hood, Steve Yarbrough, Darcey Steinke, Claude Wilkinson, Tim Gautreaux, Randall Kenan, and current Grisham writer Tom Franklin. Next year’s writer in residence will also be announced during this panel.

The day winds down with a cocktail buffet at 7:00 p.m. at Isom Place, the proceeds of which go to benefit the conference. Saturday starts at 9:00 a.m. with the yearly panel "The Endangered Species: Readers Today and Tomorrow," moderated by library and literacy advocate Elaine Scott, editor of the Ledbetter Monograph Series at the Center for Arkansas Studies at UALR. Participants will include Claiborne Barksdale, executive director of the Barksdale Reading Institute, book industry insider and columnist Pat Holt, and author Gloria Jean Pinkney (In the Forest of Your Remembrance) of the beloved Pinkney family of children’s writers and illustrators. Pinkney will also visit local schoolsas part of the Young Authors Fair sponsored by the Junior Auxiliary of Oxford.

At 10:30 a.m., Neal Coonerty, president of the American Booksellers Association, will lead a discussion on the book business with Pat Holt, Greywolf Press publisher Fiona McCrae, and Tim Huggins, formerly of the University Press of Mississippi and now owner of one of the country’s fastest rising bookstores, Newtonville Books outside of Boston.

Curtis Wilkie, author of Dixie and a recent addition to the journalism faculty at Ole Miss, shifts the focus to journalism with his panel "Covering Trouble," at 1:30 p.m. Participants will include Jack Nelson, a Pulitzer Prize winner and chief Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, and Thomas Oliphant, a nationally syndicated columnist and frequent guest on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Always a favorite at the conference is the session celebrating National Poetry Month. Led by University of Mississippi  English professor Michael P. Dean, the 3:00 p.m. session will feature readings and discussions by Beth Ann Fennelly, whose first collection, Open House, received the 2001 Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry for a First Book; Mississippi native Natasha Trethewey, who received various awards for her first collection, Domestic Work; and distinguished writer William Trowbridge, an editor of the Georgia Review whose most recent collection of poems is called Flickers. 

Various author readings are slated for the rest of Saturday afternoon, beginning at 4:00 p.m. Among the featured authors are Steve Almond, Richard Flanagan, whose new novel Gould’s Book of Fish is a historical epic that has received rave reviews in his native Australia, and Rick Moody, whose memoir, The Black Veil, is due in May. The readings conclude with a discussion and reading at 5:00 p.m. from playwright Paula Vogel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of How I Learned to Drive. 

The conference day ends with a 6:30 cocktail party at Off Square Books, the proceeds of which go to benefit the conference.

Sunday, April 14, begins at 8:00 a.m. with a continental breakfast at the Mississippi Hall of Writers in the John Davis Williams Library on the University campus. The breakfast will be hosted by John M. Meador, Dean of University Libraries.

More author readings begin at 9:00a.m., including Ace Atkins (Leavin’ Trunk Blues), blues- mystery author and recent addition to the University’s journalism department; Ole Miss professor David Galef, whose new collection of stories is called Laugh Track; Grove-Atlantic author Sheri Joseph; the multifaceted Aishah Rhaman; and one of the hottest up-and-comers in the country, Brady Udall.

The rest of Sunday is committed to the celebration of Tennessee Williams, beginning at 11:00 a.m. with a presentation of the playwright’s one-act play The Gnadiges Fraulein, directed by Michele Cuomo and starring University of Mississippi Theatre students. Dramatic scholar and University English professor Colby Kullman will offer insight.

At 1:30 p.m., renowned Williams scholar W. Kenneth Holditch will speak about the playwright in a lecture titled "Southern Comfort: Tennessee Williams and the Landscape of Childhood." Holditch edited the recent two-volume Library of America edition of Williams’s complete plays with the acclaimed New York Times theater critic Mel Gussow, who will offer his reflections at 2:30 p.m. Gussow is one of the country’s foremost experts on theater, in particular the works of Williams, Arthur Miller, and Harold Pinter.

The conference winds down with final readings from Tennessee Williams’s plays by off- Broadway theater director Erma Duricko and Holditch at 3:30 p.m. Also on the agenda for this year’s Oxford Conference for the Book is the traditional book signing with conference authors at Off Square Books and various unscheduled parties and gatherings.

Aside from a handful of events—the cocktail buffet ($50), the Off Square Books cocktail party ($25), and a luncheon on Sunday ($15)—the conference is open to the public without charge. To assure seating space, those interested in attending should preregister.

Contact the Center, either by phone (662-915-5993), fax (662-915-5814), or e-mail (cssc@olemiss.edu).

The 2002 conference is partially funded by the University of Mississippi and grants from the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, and the Tribal-State Compact Fund. Sponsors are the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Department of English, Department of History, Department of Journalism, McConnell-Barksdale Honors College, John and Renée Grisham Visiting Writers Fund, Barksdale Reading Institute, Sarah Isom Center for Women, Junior Auxiliary of Oxford, and Square Books.

Jamie Kornegay        
                          

Photograph: Tennessee Williams Photography Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. The above photograph of Tennessee Williams is reproduced on posters and T-shirts available from the Center by calling 800-390-3527.

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