First Mississippi Book Festival to celebrate state's literary legacy
In effort to highlight the state's rich literary legacy and combat its ranking among the lowest in youth literary rates, leaders announced the first Mississippi Book Festival will be held August 22.
The free event on the state capitol grounds in Jackson will feature 75 authors, headlined by New York Times bestselling author and Natchez native Greg Iles.
Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said the event will honor Mississippi's legacy of writers such as Tennessee Williams and Willie Morris, but he hopes it will help foster a cultural change.
"In a state that is home to Faulkner, Eudora Welty and so many other tremendous national treasures, to have a literacy rate amongst our young people that is alarmingly low is something that is certainly ironic and needs to be addressed," Reeves said.
The festival aims to attract people of all ages, with presentations from illustrated children's book authors, young adult authors and presentations on civil rights, romance, sports among others.
"What I'm really, really happy about are especially within young adult and civil rights history we're have some really spectacular writers coming," Steve Yates assistant director of the University Press of Mississippi said, singling out Kimberly Willis Holt for "Dear Hank Williams" and Deborah Wiles for "Freedom Summer."
Former Gov. Haley Barbour will launch his book "America's Great Storm," which follows his tenure in the days and months after Hurricane Katrina, during a conversation moderated by journalist Curtis Wilkie.
Jackson-based Matthew Guinn, whose 19th century southern crime story "The Scribe" will also debut at the festival, along with Devery Anderson's "Emmett Till: The Murder that Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement."
"People have been waiting for his Emmett Till book for years," Yates said.
State officials estimate the festival will bring $250,000 in tourism money for the local area's hotels and restaurants. Yates said he was excited for the statewide focus from the literacy community on Jackson will help it be known for more than the city of Eudora Welty and Margaret Walker.
"It is going to bring a literary power to Jackson that defines it as a literary place," Yates said. "This shines the light here on Jackson in a really cool way."
The festival received it's a majority of its seed funding from the state for its $150,000 budget. State spokesperson Holly Lange said the Legislature funded $45,000 and the state tourism department contributed an addition $40,000 with the remaining coming from private investors.
"Now we've got time to catch our breath and write grant applications. There will be more public-private partnerships going forward," Lange said.
In conjunction with the festival, The Mississippi Library Commission and the Mississippi Center for the Book created "Mississippi Reads," a project that invites people of all ages to read a book by a Mississippi author. This summer's book is John Grisham's "Sycamore Row." The commission will host online discussions for book clubs, library groups and classrooms.
"It's our goal to tell the Mississippi story through not only the wealth of emerging writers, but to also support the work of educators and dig deeper into why Mississippi is home to this extraordinary literary legacy," said Mary Margret Miller White of the Mississippi Development Authority.
Contact Jacob Threadgill at (601) 961-7192 or jthreadgil@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @JacoboLaSombra on Twitter.