![\"Teresa](\"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2022\/12\/nichols.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nNicholas\u2019 battle with personal pronouns is only part of the issue. Another problem she encounters when she writes memoirs is figuring out what to put in and what to leave out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s hard trying to make a story out of a jumble,\u201d Nicholas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (MIAL) doesn\u2019t consider Nicholas\u2019 latest memoir, \u201cThe Mama Chronicles,\u201d a jumble. In fact, Nicholas was named the winner of the MIAL\u2019s annual Life Writing Award earlier this month for her book about her mother, a child sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nicholas, a student in Mississippi University for Women\u2019s MFA in Creative Writing program, said she faced many challenges in writing \u201cThe Mama Chronicles,\u201d which she started in 2012, the year her mother died, and finished in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was surprised when I learned I had won the Life Writing Award,\u201d Nicholas said. \u201cAfter seeing the other books nominated in the category, I figured \u2018The Mama Chronicles\u2019 was a longshot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nicholas will be recognized with the other winners and award recipients on June 11, 2022, at the MIAL Banquet at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. This is her first MIAL award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nicholas said she continued to write \u201cThe Mama Chronicles\u201d even after her literary agent at the time told her it would be a hard sell to publishers. She said she took a break from the manuscript for a couple of years to write a biography of renowned Mississippi writer Willie Morris (the book is titled \u201cWillie\u201d) before returning to \u201cThe Mama Chronicles.\u201d In 2011, Nicholas\u2019 first memoir, \u201cBuryin\u2019 Daddy: Putting my Lebanese, Catholic, Southern Baptist Childhood to Rest\u201d was published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Kendall Dunkelberg, the director of The W\u2019s MFA in Creative Writing program, called \u201cThe Mama Chronicles\u201d a \u201cgripping\u201d memoir and said The W celebrates Nicholas\u2019 MIAL award. <\/p>\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/web1.muw.edu\/media\/rokgallery\/e\/e7a16cb7-837b-4b58-d58a-6eb54cf719b9\/d739ffad-fbc3-4833-805d-4dbfb6fefec7.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cWe feel very fortunate to work with her as a student in our program,\u201d Dunkelberg said. \u201cTeresa came to The W after a long career with Crown Publishing and has brought a wealth of experience to our program. When she applied, her memoir was already well on its way to being published at University Press of Mississippi, where she had done two previous books.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ellen Ann Fentress, an instructor in the MFA program, agrees and said Nicholas\u2019 \u201cintellectual curiosity and lack of pretense\u201d for someone so accomplished has been a refreshing addition to the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe was drawn to the idea of a formal systematic study of craft,\u201d Fentress said. \u201cI have also heard her say The W\u2019s low-residency format and support for studying across multiple genres also appealed to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn class, Teresa is a careful reader of everyone\u2019s work with low-key, kind yet astute insight to pieces being workshopped. Occasionally I\u2019ve closed my eyes in workshop and imagined that what she\u2019s saying was coming from the voice of an editor behind a desk in Golden Age New York publishing. She gives our workshops and writing that much respect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nicholas credits Fentress for suggesting she enroll in the MFA in Creative Writing program. She said she had taken Fentress\u2019 Continuing Education class at Millsaps College twice, and that everything she knows about writing, except what Fentress taught her at Millsaps, is self-taught. If everything goes according to schedule, Nicholas said she will graduate from the MFA in Creative Writing program in 2025 at the age of 71.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the meantime, Nicholas said she has plans for herself as a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I grow up, I\u2019d like to write a horror story — fiction, that is, inspired by Shirley Jackson,\u201d Nicholas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The W offers a Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing. It is a 48-hour program that can be completed in two to three years (or longer if students choose to attend part time). Students take online classes, combined with two types of brief residency classes. Online classes include Graduate Writing Workshops in Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Playwriting, Translation and Writing for New Media, as well as Literature and Form classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For more information about the program, email <\/a>mfacreativewriting@muw.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" COLUMBUS, Miss. — Teresa Nicholas dislikes writing \u201cI\u201d so many times, which is why you might call her a reluctant memoirist. Nicholas\u2019 battle with personal pronouns is only part of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}