Tag: Ellen Ann Fentress

HOMEGROWN: A Writer’s Exchange

I went to a new literary festival this weekend with my friend Mary Jane in–of all places–Kiln, Mississippi. Jami Attenberg was there. Lee Durkee was there. Margaret McMullen was there. And Mary Miller and Ellen Ann Fentress, my MFA thesis supervisors. and I met people I only knew by reputation. So that was super cool!

It was structured a lot like the Mississippi Book Festival–there were panels on various topics–cookbooks, memoir, short stories, novels, publishing, the writing life, etc., etc. A really cool feature was that there were three presses (one of them was University Press of Mississippi) soliciting book pitch meetings directly from authors!

I only found out about this event on Wednesday of last week, and the trip came together really quickly. So I sent in a request to have a pitch meeting with Looking for Home. I really wasn’t expecting to get in to one because of how late i was signing up–but I did! Pelican Publishing picked me up and wanted to hear my story! I didn’t find out until late Friday afternoon, so I didn’t have long to prepare. But prepare I did!

I took my computer and printed out a writing sample of my book, my CV, and a very generic query letter in the hotel’s business center after we got there Friday night. So when I got to the pitch meeting, he asked about the book, and I handed him the letter and talked about the structure and the story. Then I asked if I could read my writing sample aloud, and he said that would be great. So I did, then i handed him my CV with all my publications on it. Then he asked me about myself, hobbies, etc. (That was the hardest part; trying to make myself sound interesting has never been my strong suit.)

I don’t know if I’ll ever hear from him again; I did pull up his email and sent him a thank-you note for the meeting, and I think that was a good idea. I also had another good idea–I printed out copies of my sell-sheet for Hurricane Baby and handed them out strategically–to the guy who organized the event so I could maybe get included in next year’s event, to people who ran publications, to people who do author interviews, etc. And almost everyone I wound up meeting the first time. I handed out about half of what I printed, so that was cool, too.

Anyway. I will be doing a lot of this in the coming months and after publication, I think, so I’m looking forward to that! It felt so good to finally be able to say, “Hey, I have a book coming out, too!” So a good time was had by all.

Hope everyone has a really good week! Thanks for reading!

Mississippi Book Festival

I went to one of the most uplifting events I know of in Mississippi–the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson, Mississippi–this weekend. Mississippi has produced a lot of writers over the years, and we’ve devised a way to bring them all back in the heat of August to do panels, talks, and book signings at our state’s New Capitol building for a day dedicated to the written word.

This year was the ninth year of the festival–it was held virtually during the height of the pandemic and last year was the first year they had it in person, with over 7,000 people attending Festival events. We haven’t heard yet what this weekend’s attendance was, but every panel I have heard anyone mention has been packed full of people.

I went this year in my capacity as an employee of the University Press of Mississippi and still saw a lot of people: Lauren Rhoades, who will publish her memoir Split the Baby in 2025; CT Salazar, who has won numerous Mississippi awards for his poetry; Ellen Ann Fentress, who released her memoir The Steps We Take, with us this month; Exodus Brownlow, my MFA mate who has a fiction chapbook and an essay collection out this year; and many other of our authors and many of my friends from around the book world.

An event like this gives me something to shoot for. A new resolve to be In the Room Where It Happens. I have new hope for my books and that one day I can be a panelist and talk to people of home, my place, where I grew up, about my work in a culture–small that it is–that loves stories and words. Just you wait. . .