Mississippi’s Literary Tradition Ch. 15 – MS Studies

William Faulkner 1 book title - As I Lay Dying Fiction, playwright, poetry, essays, screenplays 1897-1962 New Albany, MS “The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” Won Nobel Prize

Richard Wright Native Son, Black Boy, Uncle Tom’s Children Fiction, poetry, non-fiction 1908-1960 Roxie, MS “The impulse to dream was slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing. “

Eudora Welty The Optimist’s Daughter, One Writer’s Beginnings Short stories, fiction 1909-2001 Jackson, MS “Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.” Pulitzer Prize 1973

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Rook Playwright 1911-1983 Columbus, MS “For time is the longest distance between two places.” Born Thomas Lanier Williams III – changed his name when he moved to New Orleans to Tennessee because his father was from there.

Margaret Walker Alexander Jubilee, This is My Century, Richard Wright, Daemonic Genius Fiction, Poetry 1915-1998 Jackson, MS “When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.”

Ellen Douglas Real name was Josephine Ayres Haxton Can’t Quit You, Baby, Apostles of Light, The Rock Cried Out Fiction 1921-2012 Natchez, MS When asked about a theme for her readers to get out of her books she replied, “There are so many things that come to mind. I would rather the reader just think about what he/she gets out of it.”

Richard Ford The Sportswriter, Let Me Be Frank With You, The Lay of the Land Fiction 1944-???? Jackson, MS Won Pulitzer Prize - 1995 Currently he is a professor at Columbia University

Beth Henley Playwright, Screenwriter 1952-???? Jackson, MS Crimes of the Heart, The Miss Firecracker Contest, The Lucky Spot, etc… “But here’s the thing: what you do as a screenwriter si you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.”

Greg Iles Fiction writer Natchez Burning, Mississippi Blood, The Bone Tree 1960-???? Natchez By Stephen King – “I defy you to find a way to start it and put it down; as long as it is, I wished it were longer. There’s a bonus: you’ll finish knowing a great deal about the Deep South’s painful struggle toward racial equality, and the bloody road between Then and Now.”

Willie Morris Fiction, journalist 1934-1999 Jackson, MS – Yazoo City North Toward Home, My Dog Skip “The dog of your boyhood teaches you a great deal about friendship, and love, and death.”- My Dog Skip

Walker Percy 1916-1990 Fiction The Moviegoer, Love in the Ruins, Lost in the Cosmos Greenville, MS “You can get all A’s and still flunk life.”

William Alexander Percy Poet 1885-1942 Greenville, MS Lanterns on the Levee, In April Once

Ida B. Wells Journalist, newspaper editor 1862-1931 Holly Springs, MS Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography, Southern Horrors She was born a slave she later became a supporter of women’s suffrage, Sociologist , Feminist, and early Civil Rights leader.

Shelby Foote American Historian, Non-fiction 1916-2005 Greenville, MS The Civil War: A Narrative, Stars in Their Courses, Love in a Dry Season “I think making mistakes and discovering the for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.”

John Grisham Fiction 1955-???? A Time to Kill, The Whistler, The Firm Southaven, MS “I can’t change overnight into a serious literary author. You can’t compare apples to oranges. William Faulkner was a great literary genius. I am not. “