![\"Fentress\"](\"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/EllenAnnFentressHeadShot-819x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAs a lifetime resident of the state of Mississippi, Fentress understands race and whiteness inevitably are part of that fabric. Fentress\u2019 new book \u201cThe Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning\u201d examines the idea that life handed her a script as a white, southern female and how that script has influenced her journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI wanted to write about what ways and to what degree you resist that script,\u201d said Fentress, a visiting professor in the Mississippi University for Women\u2019s low-residency MFA in creative writing. \u201cIn what ways will people embrace that script? The answers stamp your story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The official release date for the book will be Sept. 15, 2023. Fentress said the book is organized as a memoir-in-essays. Some of the pieces have been previously published over a stretch of years in \u201cThe New York Times,\u201d \u201cOxford American,\u201d \u201cBitter Southerner,\u201d \u201cDorothy Parker\u2019s Ashes\u201d and \u201cMississippi Magazine.\u201d She said she recently wrote new essays \u2014 particularly about volunteer work and herself \u2014 to shape the book, including \u201cWhat did March of Dimes, helping at a Baptist-backed men\u2019s shelter and Meals on Wheels say about me and about the culture?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fentress said she first noticed in 2014 that some of her essays added up to an organic story about the Deep South. She said the essays in the book and the ones ultimately left out evolved through the developmental process, though, and that the new sections are intimate. Fentress hopes that ultra-personal writing makes experiences more identifiable to others and that the new sections sharpen the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judging from feedback Fentress has received, she appears to have accomplished her goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn \u2018The Steps We Take\u2019, Fentress holds a mirror to the archetype (or stereotype) of the helpful, ever-cheerful and often self-deceiving southern white woman,\u201d said Lauren Rhoades, host of Mississippi Public Broadcasting\u2019s \u201cMississippi Arts Hour.\u201d \u201cWhat results is a meaningful examination of whiteness and womanhood, privilege and charity, all baked into the author\u2019s story of personal transformation. \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Said Paulette Boudreaux, author of \u201cMulberry: A Novel,\u201d \u201cFentress\u2019s book is an attempt not only to tell her story but to offer a way forward from the blindness and consequent harm caused by the easy acceptance of inequality in American society. Always the hope is that exposure to such earnest stories will persuade others toward the type of self-reflection and change in individual attitudes and behaviors that will move the needle on America\u2019s racial and gender issues in positive directions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boudreaux also is a teacher in The W\u2019s low-residency MFA program, while Rhoades graduated from the program in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Fentress, whose website \u201cThe Admissions Project: Race and the Possible for Southern Schools\u201d has published stories by people who graduated from segregation academies, her writing will continue to examine the smallest details and highlight how they impact our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI see the world in that universe-in-a-grain-of-sand-way,\u201d Fentress said. \u201cEveryday life comes with signals of the time, place and circumstances that we live in. I like writing that doesn\u2019t waste time with anything less than then honest truth. Bonus points for a wry voice that tells me something new and finds humor, even when it\u2019s bittersweet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ellen Ann Fentress always has been fascinated by how the smallest event can pack a cavernous cultural truth. As a lifetime resident of the state of Mississippi, Fentress understands race […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","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\/260","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=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/mfacreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}