News & Events

Two University of Mississippi faculty members had books recognized by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as among the best pieces of southern literature published in 2018. Kiese Laymon’s memoir Heavy and Chris Offutt’s novel Country Dark were among eleven titles selected as the best southern books of 2018. AJC arts and books editor Suzanne Van Atten said it was “a particularly outstanding year for southern books.”

“We never read the same book twice. But each time it is our book, locked in our innermost heart as we move and change through time.”—Edmund White, in The Unpunished Vice. Read a review of White’s The Unpunished Vice from the Guardian.

During the Twenty-Sixth Oxford Conference for the Book, photographer-filmmaker-geographer David Zurick will present an illustrated talk based on his new book A Fantastic State of Ruin: The Painted Towns of Rajasthan. His books and photography have won numerous awards, including the National Outdoor Book Award and Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Visual Artist Fellowship Award (twice). In 2014 he began A Fantastic State of Ruin, a series of color photographs in India, which was published in 2018.

Born and raised in East Tennessee, Jessica Wilkerson is assistant professor of history and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. Her new book To Live Here, You Have to Fight tells the story of women activists in 1970s Appalachia. She’ll moderate a panel session, with Karida Brown, Elizabeth Catte, and Meredith McCarroll, during the conference on “The Appalachian South.”

Take a look back at what folks said about the Twenty-Third Oxford Conference for the Book in 2016.