Steve Yarbrough Named as Keynote Author
Novelist Steve Yarbrough returns as the keynote author at the 30th annual Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium, Oct. 18-20, 2018. Yarbrough has received many awards for his fiction, including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, the Richard Wright Award, and the Robert Penn Warren Award. He has been a frequent guest in the symposium’s early years featuring his three story collections, and will read from his seventh novel, The Unmade World, published in January.
Beginning with a fateful accident in Krakow, Poland, Yarbrough’s novel is a fitting opening for this year’s symposium theme, “‘As If the Ear of the World Listened’: Celebrating Thirty Years of Southern Stories,” inspired by Eudora Welty’s novel “Delta Wedding.” Yarbrough deftly weaves international politics, intrigue, and an intimate portrayal of “two ordinary men,” which Publisher’s Weekly has dubbed an “intricate and satisfying novel,” while naming it a “Best Book.”
Other writers who will return to this year’s symposium include: Angela Ball, Minrose Gwin, Pauline Kaldas, Silas House, Adam Vines, and Latha Viswanathan. Writers who are new to the symposium will include The W’s own T. K. Lee with his debut collection of poetry, Mike C. Smith of Delta State University, poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, and novelist Anthony Grooms. Please see this year's Program for more details as it is updated throughout the summer.
