Tag: Lauren Rhoades

New Opportunity

So we have our first festival invitation! The Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has invited me to be on a panel and will have my books available for the sale tent at the event in November 2024. So that was a nice surprise when I got the message.

I am still holding out hope for the Mississippi Book Festival in September 2024. It’s only a few weeks after my book launch, which is now about two months away. But it’s not unusual for them to finalize their author list at the last minute, so I still have time to wait.

My work-in-progress is getting more manageable! I have two half-chapters and a set of scenes that aren’t connected together yet. I will figure them out. Maybe I will finish this section before the end of the month. Then I have the whole middle to write (from scratch!) That’s too terrifying to think about right now, though.

I did a very rewarding this yesterday–I talked via Zoom to students from my former MFA program about my journey to publication, along with two other alumni who are publishing books–Karol Lagodski and Lauren Rhoades. We just talked about pushing through and persevering and not giving up, sprinkled in with some practical advice along the way. It was so good to see everyone that runs the program and to meet the new faces as well. I hope I can do more of those kind of talks in the future.

I guess that’s all my news for today! Wishing everyone well!

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. . .