W. Ralph Eubanks, acclaimed Southern writers featured at 38th Annual Welty Symposium
COLUMBUS, Miss.— Mississippi native W. Ralph Eubanks returns as keynote author for Mississippi University for Women’s 38th annual Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium, Oct. 22-24 with his latest collection of essays, “Darkness on the Delta: How America’s Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land.”
“Also featured during the weekend will be the reception on Thursday, October 23, at 4pm in Summer Hall for the Welty Series art exhibit,” said Dr. Kendall Dunkelberg, director of the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium.
Mixing memoir, personal essay, history and journalism, Eubanks explores memories of his years growing up in the Delta and returning to visit after his family moved away. While examining the places, important people and events that have shaped this iconic landscape, he confronts the specter of poverty and abandonment, also paying homage to the incredible resilience of the Delta’s communities, untangling both the roots of its darkest issues and the resistance of its people that offers hope.
Eubanks is writer in residence at the University of Mississippi and has had a distinguished career, teaching at the University of Virginia, serving as editor-in-chief at the Library of Congress and receiving the Mississippi Governor’s Arts Award for Excellence in Literature, among many other accomplishments.
His reading will launch this year’s symposium with the theme “‘Like a Visitor from Nowhere’: Encounters in the Uncanny South” which is inspired by Eudora Welty’s story “Moon Lake.” The keynote session will be held on Thursday, Oct. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in The W’s Poindexter Hall. After the reading, there will be a reception and book signing in the lobby with all symposium authors.
Sessions continue Friday at 9:30 a.m. until noon, Friday at 1:30 p.m. until 4 p.m. and Saturday at 9:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.
Another highlight of the symposium is the announcement of the Eudora Welty Prize for a book published by the University Press of Mississippi. This year’s award will go to Dr. Sarah Gilbreath Ford for “Of Women and Water: Submersion Stories in Eudora Welty’s Fiction,” which among other stories, prominently features a chapter discussing the near-drowning of a girl in “Moon Lake.” A professor of English at Baylor University, Dr. Ford is co-editor of the The Eudora Welty Review and has published widely on Eudora Welty and Southern literature.
Dr. Ford will lead off the Friday morning session, followed by poets Marcus Wicker and Kwoya Fagin Maples. Wicker, who teaches at the University of Memphis, brings his third collection, “Dear Mothership,” which includes a crown of sonnets centered around an extraterrestrial who has touched down in modern-day Atlanta. Meanwhile, Maples, coming from the University of Alabama, will read from her collection “Long Eye,” which explores the South Carolina Lowcountry through the lens of the West African water spirit Mami Wata.
A native of the Mississippi coast, Amelia Franz will round out the morning session by reading from her debut collection, “The Longest Man-Made Beach in the World,” which Kirkus has dubbed “a strong, vivid batch of tales about ordinary folks living Biloxi lives.”
Friday afternoon begins with Meghana Mysore, who in her debut story collection, “Let All Our Ghosts Depart,” writes about growing up as the child of Indian immigrants, navigating trauma and grief in what Southern Review of Booksas labeled a “Haunting, lyrical heartbreak.” Poet Whitney Rio-Ross from Nashville will follow with a reading from her collection “thunder makes us,” poems that explore heritage, faith and womanhood in the South. Justin Wymer will read from his memoir in poetic prose, “Let the Forest Go,” which chronicles two years spent working in Spain while reexamining his West Virginia roots, identity and the cultural upheaval in the America he had left behind.
These published writers will be joined by five high-school Ephemera Prize winners, whose poems, essays and stories were judged by Whitney Rio-Ross and Justin Wymer. Each Ephemera Prize winner will read their entry, receive a $200 award and be published in the online anthology, available soon on the Welty Symposium website.
The symposium will pick up on Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. with a reading by Jackson, native Ellen Morris Prewitt from her novel, “When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women.” Set in New Orleans and resurrecting the main character’s three ancestral “grannies,” the novel serves up what Bradley Sides, writing for Chapter 16, describes as “a time-bending adventure, spanning histories, packed with action, violence, humor and heart.”
Angela Ball, who teaches poetry at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers, will read from her seventh collection, “Steeplechase,” which examines “two years of grace” following a partner’s diagnosis with terminal illness.
John T. Edge, founder of the Southern Foodways Alliance and frequent contributor to Garden and Gun, Oxford American and other outlets on Southern food and culture, will read from his memoir “House of Smoke,” which chronicles his turbulent Georgia upbringing and the sometimes-traumatic experiences that would eventually lead him to found the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi.
To close the symposium, David Armand returns with his fourth novel, “Walk the Night,” an entry into a genre of fiction he calls, “Southern Horror,” in which a young boy begins to experience strange sights at night in the run-down rental home where he and his parents are living. Armand will also discuss his memoir and writing manual, “The Roads We Travel,” also published this year.
Other Welty Series events include the Welty Gala on Friday evening, a university fundraiser and dinner featuring Elizabeth Smart, who after her own abduction and captivity as a child would go on to become an advocate for legislation related to child abduction, sexual abuse, human trafficking and recovery programs. Her most recent book, “Detours: Hope and Growth After Life’s Hardest Turns,” empowers readers to navigate life’s detours, embrace resilience and find healing and purpose after adversity. The Welty Gala will be held at the James M. Trotter Convention Center, beginning at 6 p.m..
Also featured during the weekend will be the reception on Thursday, Oct. 22, at 4 p.m. in Summer Hall for the Welty Series art exhibit.All symposium sessions and art exhibits are free and open to the public. However, for Welty Gala reservations, please contact the MUW Foundation.
For information on the authors, books, the Ephemera Prize, and the Gala, see the Welty Series website www.muw.edu/welty.