HOMEGROWN: A WRITERS’ EXCHANGE

SALVAGE THIS WORLD (2023)

Michael Farris Smith lives in Oxford, Mississippi. He is an award-winning writer whose novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists from NPR, Southern Living, and Book Riot. He has also written film adaptations of his novels Desperation Road and The Fighter, titled Rumble Through the Dark for screen.

DRAWING THE LINE (2016)

Marshall Ramsey is a veteran journalist, cartoonist, and host of Mississippi Public Broadcasting shows on radio and television. He is the editor-at-large of Mississippi Today and reported for twenty-two years at the Clarion Ledger in Jackson. He is a two-time Pulitzer Finalist, and has published several books, including cartoon collections and short stories.

I AM FROM HERE (2022)

A James Beard award-winning chef, Vishwesh Bhatt lives in Oxford, Mississippi, where he is the Executive Chef at SNACKBAR. In 2019, he was named Best Chef South , along with Southern Living’s “Southerner of the Year.” National Geographic Magazine named Vishwesh as “one of the top 5 chefs in the South.” His 2022 cookbook, I AM FROM HERE, includes 130 recipes which reflect why Vishwesh believes the south is “the most exciting place to eat in the U.S.” In addition to his experience in Oxford, he has worked in restaurants in Jackson (MS), Denver, and Boulder (CO). His recipes have been featured in articles in The Guardian, Epicurious, and Vegetarian Times.

A SOUTHERLY COURSE (2011)

Martha Foose is a Mississippi native, chef and writer. She won the Southern Independent Booksellers Award and the James Beard Award for American Cooking in 2009. She has published two books, including her first, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea. She has also co-written cookbooks and A Good Meal is Hard to Find: Storied Recipes from the Deep South, a collection of recipes and Southern-inspired stories.

Ernest Foundas is the founder and executive chef of Suis Generis in New Orleans and runs the Tiki Farm & Food Lab in Pearlington, Mississippi. He grew up down the street from Commander’s Palace and was inspired by New Orleans restaurant icons and began cooking around age ten. Both Suis Generis and the Food Lab aim to provide a creative food experience with a zero-waste mindset.

STALKING SHAKESPEARE (2023)

Lee Durkee lives in northern Mississippi. His novel The Last Taxi Driver was named Kirkus Reviews’ Best Book of 2020. His stories and essays have appeared in Harper’s, The Sun, Oxford American, Zoetrope: All Story, and Mississippi Noir.

WHERE THE ANGELS LIVED (2019)

Margaret McMullan lives and writes full-time in Pass Christian, MS. A recipient of a National Endowment of Arts Fellowship in literature, Margaret McMullan is the author of nine award-winning books. Her novels include When Warhol Was Still Alive, Aftermath Lounge, In My Mother’s House.

SPEAK, OKINAWA: A MEMOIR (2021)

Elizabeth Miki Brina received her MFA in Creative Writing from University of New Orleans, and her BA in English and Philosophy from Northeastern University in Boston. She taught high school special education for six years. Now she teaches composition and ESL. She writes mostly personal essays and published her first book, SPEAK, OKINAWA: A MEMOIR which focuses on the marriage between her mother, a native of Okinawa, and her father, a soldier who was stationed on the island during US military occupation, as well as the complications of growing up as the only daughter of two people from such vastly different backgrounds. Her work has appeared in Hyphen, New Delta Review, So-to-Speak, a feminist journal of language & thought, and Under the Gum Tree.

1000 WORDS (2024)

Jami Attenberg lives in New Orleans and has written about food, travel, books, relationships and urban life for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and more. Her fourth book, The Middlesteins, was published in October 2012. It appeared on The New York Times bestseller list and was also a finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and the St. Francis College Literary Prize.

MR. JIMMY FROM AROUND THE WAY (2024)

Jeffrey Blount’s new book — just released— is MR. JIMMY FROM AROUND THE WAY. He is the award-winning author of four novels, including THE EMANCIPATION OF EVAN WALLS, a winner of the Readers Favorite Book Award in 2019. Blount is also an award-winning writer of documentary scripts for film. Jeffrey was born and raised in Smithfield, VA, and now lives in Washington, D.C.

THE WEEDS (2023)

Katy Simpson Smith’s novel, THE EVERLASTING was a New York Times best historical fiction book in 2020. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Oxford American, and other publications.

THE LAST SUSPICIOUS HOLDOUT (2022)

Ladee Hubbard currently lives in New Orleans. She is the author of three novels. The Talented Ribkins received the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction. Her writing has appeared in Oxford American, Guernica, Virginia Quarterly and other publications. She is a recipient of a Berlin Prize, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award.

BILOXI (2019)

Mary Miller is the author of the popular novel, BILOXI (2019), THE LAST DAYS OF CALIFORNIA, and BIG WORLD. Her short stories have been published in the collection, ALWAYS HAPPY HOUR (2017). Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Pushcart Prize XLIV, and the Oxford American, among other publications. Miller and grew up in Jackson, MS and currently lives in Oxford.

THINNING BLOOD (2023)

Leah Myers is a member of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe of the Pacific Northwest. She earned her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of New Orleans, where she won the Samuel Mockbee Award for Nonfiction two years in a row. She now lives in Alabama, with roots in Georgia, Arizona, and Washington. Her work has previously appeared in The Atlantic, Craft Literary Magazine, Fugue Journal, and elsewhere. Her debut memoir, Thinning Blood, is published by W.W. Norton and received a rave review in the New York Times.

BROWN PELICAN (2022)

Rien Fertel is the author of BROWN PELICAN, which documents the plight of the Brown Pelican on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. His other books include: Southern Rock Opera and Imagining the Creole City. His work has appeared in Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Oxford American, and more. He also writes a literary column for 64 PARISHES, Louisiana’s official arts and culture quarterly magazine. Fertel holds a PhD and is a visiting professor of history for Tulane University. Rien was born and raised in Louisiana & currently lives with his wife, Katy Simpson Smith and their newborn baby. Congratulations, Y’All.

THEY CALLED US RIVER RATS (2022)

Macon Fry’s book THEY CALLED US RIVER RATS, chronicles his 30-plus years living on the Mississippi River’s batture—the land between the low tide point and the levee—in New Orleans. He has been researching and writing about the unique culture and folkways of South Louisiana since moving to Louisiana in 1981. Macon is also an educator in the New Orleans public schools.

SECOND NATURE (2021)

Nathaniel Rich lives in New Orleans. His short fiction has been published by McSweeney’s, Emergence, Esquire, and other publications. His novel Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade was the basis for the film Dark Waters. Rich is a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine and frequent contributor to The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books.

HANNAH AND ARIELA (2022)

Johnnie Bernhard is a former English teacher and journalist. Her novel How We Came to Be was short-listed by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters for 2019 Fiction of the Year. Her work has been published in anthologies for Louisiana Literature, The Pulpwood Queens Celebrate Twenty Years, and Katrina Memories, and her articles and columns have appeared in The Mississippi Press and other publications.

THE STEPS WE TAKE (2023)

Ellen Ann Fentress is a lifelong Mississippian, currently living in Jackson. She is a journalist focusing on culture and politics and has reported on Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald, and Capital Reporter. Her essays have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic and more. She is a Visiting Writer in the Mississippi University for Women’s creative-writing MFA program and teaches creative nonfiction in community workshops.

POOR GAL (2023)

Dan Gutstein’s newest project is the book, POOR GAL (December 2023) — an extensively researched account of the cultural history of the folk song “Little Liza Jane.” Dan is also the co-director of an extraordinary documentary film about the “Little Liza Jane” song and its significance in American music. Dan is the author of eight books including METACARPALISM. His poems and short stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, American Scholar, and more. He is also a vocalist and lyricist for the punk rock band Joy on Fire (States of America, 2022). He lives in Washing, DC.

Deep South Dining - MPB Think Radio

Carol Puckett is the co-host of the Mississippi Public Broadcasting radio show, Deep South Dining. She serves as a Chair of the Mississippi Arts Commission and on various boards of directors. She is the founder of a gourmet retail store and cooking school, Everyday Gourmet, in Jackson, Mississippi.

UNDER SURGE, UNDER SIEGE (2010)

Ellis Anderson lives in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi where she is publisher and editor of digital publications The Shoofly Magazine (from 2011-2022) and The French Quarter Journal (2019- ). She has served as a board member for The Arts, Hancock County from 2012 to 2014 and served as co-chair of the Bay St. Louis Historic Preservation Commission in 2018. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans. Her book Under Surge, Under Siege won the 2010 Eudora Welty Book Prize and the Mississippi Library Association Non-Fiction Author’s Award.

THREE LETTERS (2021)

Bill Lavender is a poet, novelist, publisher, and co-founder of the New Orleans Poetry Festival. In 1995 he founded Lavender Ink, a small press in New Orleans. In 2011, he founded Diálogos, an imprint featuring translations and other books of multicultural identity. From 2007 to 2012, he was the managing editor of University of New Orleans Press.

HOW TO DROWN A BOY (2024)

J. Bruce Fuller is the director of Texas Review Press and an author and poet. His works have been published in anthologies and chapbooks, as well as The Southern Review, Crab Orchard Review, and other publications. His has been the recipient of scholarships from Stanford University, where he was a 2016-2018 Wallace Stegner Fellow and the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. He currently teaches at Sam Houston State University.

Editor, University Press of Mississippi

Lisa McMurtray holds an MFA in creative writing from Florida State University, and is an alumna of Mississippi State University, where she holds an MA and BA in English Language & Literature. She is an acquisitions editor at University Press of Mississippi in Jackson—where she brings new projects to press from proposal to publishing. She specializes in biography and memoir, Caribbean studies, ethno-musicology, and women’s gender & sexuality studies.

Mississippi Center for the Book

Tracy Carr has served with the Mississippi Library Commission since 2004, and is currently the Library Services Director. She is the Director for the Mississippi Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress program, which participates in literary projects, including the Mississippi Literary Map, the Jane Smith Literacy Award, and the Mississippi Book Festival. She also is a speaker with the Mississippi Humanities Council Speakers Bureau.