APPLAUSE! MISSISSIPPI WRITING AT ITS BEST
2011 Season
The 2011 season of Applause! kicks off with the Festival of Writers - something for everyone – the deliciously macabre stories of Alexander Brown; Katrina Byrd’s plays; Willie McKennis’ newest life management book; the delightful novels and stories of Bernice Rayford Rivers; Stephanie Stamps, an insightful, funny children’s author; Theresa Vigour’s brave, thought-provoking and moving book about the loss of a child; and Rick Ward’s Mississippi novels based on his knowledge of law enforcement, the gambling industry, history and general shenanigans. Mark your calendar now—you won’t want to miss a single moment of Applause!
February 24
Charles W. Eagles
William F.Winter, Professor of History
Eagles has been a member of the history faculty at the University of Mississippi since 1983. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and specializes in 20th Century U.S. history. His dissertation was published in 1982 as Jonathan Daniel and Race Relations: The Evolution of a Southern Liberal.
Several of his books deal with the Civil Rights Movement. Outside Agitator: Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, published by University of North Carolina Press in 1993, received the Lillian Smith Award in non-fiction.
The Price of Defiance: James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss, also published by the University of North Carolina Press, received the McLemore Prize from the Mississippi Historical Society for the best Mississippi history book in 2009, the 2010 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for nonfiction, and the 2010 Lillian Smith Award in non-fiction. This is the second time that Eagles has won the Lillian Smith Award in non-fiction.
In addition to articles in the Journal of Southern History, the Journal of American History, the Historian, the North Carolina Historical Review, and the Journal of Mississippi History, he has written Democracy Delayed: Congressional Reapportionment and Urban-Rural Conflict in the 1920s (1991; paperback 2010).
In 2010 Eagles received the university's First Student Service Award.
March 24
Hunter Cole
Hunter Cole, Brandon, Mississippi, was associate director and marketing manager of the University Press of Mississippi at the time of his retirement in 2003. He has contributed essays to a number of publications about Eudora Welty, and he helped to compile and edit Photographs, UPM's collection of Welty's photographic work. From the Inside Flap of The Legs Murder Scandal.The full story of "Mississippi's Lizzie Borden" and the sensational matricide that mystified the nation.
April 28
Steve Yates
Born and reared in Springfield, Missouri, Steve Yates is an M.F.A. graduate from the creative writing program at the University of Arkansas. His novel, Morkan's Quarry, was published in May 2010 by Moon City Press. His fiction has won two fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission and one from the Arkansas Arts Council. Portions of Morkan’s Quarry first appeared in Missouri Review, Ontario Review, and South Carolina Review. A novella-length excerpt was a finalist for the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society William Faulkner / Wisdom Award for the Best Novella. Yates has published short stories in TriQuarterly, Southwest Review, Turnstile, Western Humanities Review, Laurel Review, Chariton Review, Valley Voices, and many other journals. He is assistant director / marketing director at University Press of Mississippi in Jackson, and lives in Flowood with his wife, Tammy.
May 26
Culpepper Webb
A native of Leland, Mississippi, Culpepper Webb worked as a book salesman and traveled around the world prior to completing his BA degree from Baylor University. With more than three decades of experience in the insurance and financial services industry, he holds the Chartered Life Underwriter professional designation, has served as president of the Society of Financial Service Professionals, Mississippi Chapter, is a life member of the Million Dollar Round Table and is active in church, civic and writing organizations. Culpepper and Ronda, his wife of more than thirty years, reside in Madison, Mississippi and have three children.
Arnold Dyre
June 23
Arnold Dyre writes:"I live in Madison, Mississippi, and am a 61-year old Jackson attorney, retired from active law practice. I was born in Montgomery County and grew up in Grenada County and currently write a weekly column for The Daily Star, a newspaper in Grenada, Mississippi. My weekly columns, as well as some features for various special editions, are mostly anecdotal musings calculated to interest local readers and relate primarily to nostalgic memories of experiences growing up in a rural community called Gore Springs. I have had similar types of pieces published in The Oxford SO & SO, The Tombigbee Country Magazine, and Yesterday's Memories." "Additionally, I write short stories and poetry, and I've also completed two legal thriller/police/crime novels for which I am currently seeking the representation of a literary agent and/or publisher."
Many of the stories in Dyre's first book, Home Is Where the Heart Is, and in the sequel, Home Again, first appeared as newspaper articles
July 28
Erica Spindler
“No matter how innocent the story being relayed to me is, I can twist it into something pretty damn frightening. I’ve learned the real trick is not sharing these versions with those relaying the story. It tends to make people avoid me.” ~ Erica Spindler
A New York Times and International bestselling author, Erica Spindler's skill for crafting engrossing plots and compelling characters has earned both critical praise and legions of fans. Published in 25 countries, her stories have been lauded as “thrill-packed page turners, white- knuckle rides and edge-of-your-seat whodunits.”
Raised in Rockford, Illinois, Erica had planned on being an artist, earning a BFA from Delta State University and an MFA from the University of New Orleans in the visual arts. In June of 1982, in bed with a cold, she picked up a romance novel for relief from daytime television. She was immediately hooked, and soon decided to try to write one herself. She leaped from romance to suspense in 1996 with her novel Forbidden Fruit, and found her true calling.
Her novel Bone Cold won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence. A Romance Writers of America Honor Roll member, she received a Kiss of Death Award for her novels Forbidden Fruit and Dead Run and was a three-time RITA® Award finalist. Publishers Weekly awarded the audio version of her novel Shocking Pink a Listen Up Award, naming it one of the best audio mystery books of 1998.
Erica lives just outside New Orleans, Louisiana, with her husband and two sons. The family also owns a home on the (Barnett) Reservoir.
August 25
Allie Povall
Allie Povall was 12 years old in 1954 in Holmes County where the events of The Time of Eddie Noel took place. This is the story of how a black man, Eddie Noel, shot and killed a white honky-tonk owner, Ramon Dickard. One of the largest posses in Mississippi history was formed and they hunted Eddie Noel. Eddie Noel killed two more white men and wounded three others before disappearing into the the woods of southwest Holmes County. This is the story of how a black man, a three time murderer, in Mississippi could beat the lynch mob, beat the posse, beat the system and avoid almost certain death? Eddie Noel, though he confessed to the murders was never tried or convicted and he spent the last 22 years of his life living peacefully with family in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Allie Povall interviewed many people, read newspaper accounts and court records and relied on his own memory of this event. This story has almost reached mythic status in Holmes County but there are still those who will not talk about it for example Eddie Noel’s family in Indiana promised his mother that they would never discuss it outside of the family. Allie Povall has done a great job in gathering this information to tell us a story of a time in Mississippi that was full of bootlegging and moonshine, gambling and juke joints and the time of Eddie Noel.
September 22
Suzanne Marrs
Suzanne Marrs is the author of
One Writer's Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty and
What There is to say We Have Said. She is a professor of English at Millsaps College and lives in Jackson, Mississippi.
Applause! affords an opportunity for Metropolitan Jackson citizens to meet Mississippi’s best writers. All Applause! presentations are made by writers who live or were born in Mississippi. They share varied experiences about their lives or their work; anecdotes often full of wit and humor, often revealing, sad or touching. They speak of their writing; why they write, how they write and we listen and learn and are always much richer for the experience.
Join the Jackson Friends of the Library and become a supporter of this program and other Jackson/Hinds Library System activities.
