in Yazoo City, Mississippi, early adulthood in Austin, Texas, and eventual move from the South to New York City. Critics cited the author for his tender reflections on Southern smalltown culture, and for the tone of those alienated expatriate Southerners who move north, but retain nostalgia for the South they left behind. As the youngest-ever editor-in-chief of an influential literary magazine, Morris helped to launch the careers of notable writers such as William Styron and Norman Mailer. But the Cowles family, owners of Harper's Magazine, was perplexed by the content Morris published: longer articles of overtly liberal sentiment that offended more cautious advertisers. Amidst falling ad sales, the Cowles family expressed their dissatisfaction with Morris until he ultimately resigned under pressure in 1971. Morris on Long Island Following his resignation from Harper's, Morris moved to Bridgehampton, Long Island, where he lived for many years before returning to the South. During that time he became close friends with fellow writer James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity, and Jones's wife Gloria. Later, when his friend lay dying in Southampton Hospital of heart failure, Willie Morris took notes from Jones about his work-in-progress, the novel Whistle, which Morris finished for his friend Jones. Morris returns home In 1980, Morris returned to his native state to be writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi where he encouraged a new generation of Mississippi writers including John Grisham, who acknowledged auditing Morris's writing classes, and Donna Tartt, who enrolled in the University of Mississippi in 1981, and whose writing caught the attention of Willie Morris when she was a freshman. Following the suggestion of Morris and others, she transferred to Bennington College in 1982. One of Morris' books, Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood was made into a TV movie for Public Television by Disney and PBS Wonderworks and later re-titled The River Pirates in 1988 not far from where Morris lived. It starred Richard Farnsworth, Maureen O'Sullivan, Dixie Wade, Ryan Francis, Caryn West and Richard E. Council. In 2000, My Dog Skip, another of Morris' books and an unofficial prequel to the earlier film, was made into a major motion picture starring Frankie Muniz, Diane Lane, Luke Wilson and Kevin Bacon. (Morris had previously written for Reader's Digest a profile of his dog 'Pete,' whom he had adopted while living in Bridgehampton, New York. When Morris left Bridgehampton, he took Pete,