Jackson Free Press stories: Bookshttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/books/Jackson Free Press stories: Booksen-usWed, 02 Jun 2021 11:55:23 -0500An Examination of ‘The Last Soul Company: The Malaco Records Story’https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/jun/02/examination-last-soul-company-malaco-records-story/

Rob Bowman's March 23, 2021, release, "The Last Soul Company: The Malaco Records Story," came to my doorstep in a pizza box-sized package that utterly bemused my poor postman, who is otherwise accustomed to dropping off the several deliveries I've received as part of my reviewing work with the Jackson Free Press. The reason for the bulky packaging was immediately apparent—the book itself is a coffee-table book, heavy, with a glossy black-and-white cover image of a Black man smoking the last few drags of a pale cigarette.

The inside of the manuscript is no different, with the academic writing punctuated by photographs, often stopping the text for pages at a time to include pictures taken at the Jackson recording company through its five decades of business, which the book commemorates. Stills of the artists that  propelled Malaco's rise to fame stud its pages, but it features just as many "behind-the-scenes" looks at the company that is now the longest-standing independent record label in U.S. history.

A quick thumb-through of the well-researched tome makes it evident, then, that Malaco Records's success was synonymous with the success of its Black artists, who pioneered the stylings and sounds that helped the label stay afloat even during the rocky years when disco dominated the charts. Bowman does not ignore the contribution of Black artists to the last soul company's success—indeed, their contributions are unignorable in the larger story of late-20th century blues-infused music.

Bowman does, however, seem to  water down the Black experience that made such soulful stylings possible. After all,  Malaco Records got its start in Oxford, Miss., signing Black artists to perform during the same decade that left two people dead and 300 injured on the campus of the state's flagship university in the wake of the admission of James Meredith, the University of Mississippi's first Black student.

The focus instead is often on the white proprietors of the label, who were gifted at plucking artists from obscurity and helping them select songs and records that would  elevate them to the top of their corners of the music world. Bowman makes it clear that this corner of the music world was often a specific one, as he points out that Malaco's only number-one records came on the gospel charts, a considerable distance from the more mainstream pop and rock offerings of the day.

Still, the company enjoyed unabated success, employing nearly 200 at its peak. Hard times eventually befell the Northside Drive edifice, as several of its premier performers eventually succumbed to poor health or the evolving music scene, which larger media conglomerates overtook by purchasing independent radio stations.

Bowman laments this transition, noting that when smaller radio stations from Houston to Gulfport stopped being able to select their own music—often the life-songs of their listeners, blues and soul and other undeniably Southern genres—the Mississippi record label suffered.

The overarching story of Malaco (at least in Bowman's estimation) is one of  resilience, as the company has pivoted to promoting its music via streaming services and has rebuilt its physical location after an F-2 tornado devastated its original studio. And how could it be otherwise? The Black artists who put it on the map were and are well-acquainted with tenacity, with persisting in spite of seemingly overwhelming odds in the face of a larger mainstream culture that overlooks their talent at best and stifles them at worst.

Reading "The Last Soul Company: The Malaco Records Story" reminded me what a unique opportunity it is to build a life in Mississippi's capital city, which has so often fostered the talents of artists—musical, literary, visual—that the rest of the nation would have allowed to fade into insignificance.

After all, the rest of the nation so often thinks of Ross Barnett's dire warnings of "drinking from the cup of genocide" when confronted with forced integration when it thinks of Mississippi, but in Jackson, we know that while those aspects of our history are true and must be reckoned with (and are often not history at all, as they can unexpectedly rear their ugly heads and remind us that they still live with us in the present), so are the successes and talents of our citizens, who bravely sing a song of better times and a brighter future in the sharing of their gifts.

Purchase the book through malaco.com or at Lemuria Book Store.

Taylor McKay HathornWed, 02 Jun 2021 11:55:23 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/jun/02/examination-last-soul-company-malaco-records-story/
Two Sisters, Redemption and Regret: ‘The Gravedigger’s Guild’https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/may/05/two-sisters-redemption-and-regret-gravediggers-gui/

Susan Farris' debut novel, cleverly set over a period of three days, allows readers to witness the deaths and subsequent resurrections of the long-diseased relationships in the Matins family, which take center stage in "The Gravedigger's Guild" following the death of its matriarch, Alice Matins.

The book opens on the evening of Alice's wake, which causes quite the stir at the Chapel of the Cross in Madison, Miss. The titular gravedigger's guild has realized that Alice's burial plot is unsuitable for digging. Alice's older daughter, Maggy, is driving in from New York, full of sorrow over a recently ended relationship and her firing from her job as a fashion editor. Alice's younger daughter, Quinn, is raising five children and has a husband with a secret that might wreck their marriage and their finances.

All of this suffering, however, is compounded by the fact that Quinn and Maggy haven't spoken in 16 years, with each blaming the other for the shattering of the relationship. Alice has acted as the family's glue for the better part of two decades, ferrying messages between the sisters and making sure both Quinn and Maggy felt that they had a champion in their mother. The one thing she could not shield them from was the fallout from her death, which both sisters, despite being grown women with careers and families, seem ill-equipped to handle.

For me, this gave rise to the novel's dual weakness and strength: the unlikeability of the two protagonists. Both Maggy and Quinn are emotionally inept, fumbling through their personal relationships with a seeming inability to manage their familial affairs without coming to blows (mostly verbal, though one sister did actually hit the other near the end of the novel). The two women are steeped in a selfish stew of their own brewing from which they seem unable to escape, even when the parishioners of the Chapel of the Cross (and its attractive priest, whom the author and the townspeople were quick to pair with the freshly single Maggy) look on in dismay.

The sheer unpalatability of Maggy and Quinn allows the reader to focus on the novel's neatly structured plot and strong narration. At times, I felt like one of the clucking "church ladies" of the novel, shaking my head at the antics of the Matins sisters while still remaining wholly invested in their problems and how they intermingle. Maggy needs to overcome her resentment toward Quinn, who slept with Maggy's boyfriend while the duo were still in college. Quinn needs to bridle her bitterness toward Maggy, who moved away to New York rather than confront her sister with her feelings when Quinn became pregnant with Maggy's then-boyfriend's child.

This is further complicated by the fact that Maggy's old flame is still in the picture as Quinn's now-husband. He is as unlikeable as the sisters, refusing to confront his role in their feud while also scheming to cover up his mismanagement of the couple's finances.

Farris, however, does not allow any of her characters to remain irredeemable, often leaning on the inherent religiosity of the novel to support the characters' journey toward selflessness. None of them seem to ever totally arrive, which is satisfying in its own way, as readers are constantly reminded that there is too much "water under the bridge" for the characters and their relationships to emerge entirely unscathed.

Water is, after all, an important symbolic element in the novel, as the sky unleashes its fury throughout the weekend of Alice Matins' funeral, beginning with a midnight windstorm and concluding with an afternoon tornado. As a former English major, I loved seeing this plot device used continually throughout the novel in order to communicate the state of affairs: The worse the weather got, the worse the state of the Matins family became. It combined seamlessly with the novel's plot arc, and it strengthened the novel itself as it did so.

Despite this carefully structured narrative, Farris refuses any tidy endings, leaving readers with a message of the lasting regret imbued by words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

She also purposely fails to provide readers with clear answers, asking her audience to make an important and lasting judgment: What does forgiveness require you to mend, and what does it force you to let go?

"The Gravedigger's Guild" is available for purchase through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other sources. Paperback copies cost $14.99, and digital copies cost $6.99.

Taylor McKay HathornWed, 05 May 2021 13:51:24 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/may/05/two-sisters-redemption-and-regret-gravediggers-gui/
A Mother’s Advice: Irma Mae Rogers on ‘Mother Wit’https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/mar/31/mothers-advice-irma-mae-rogers-mother-wit/

Born in rural Sharkey County, Irma Mae Rogers—author of the recently released book "Mother Wit"—moved to Jackson, Miss., as a young child. Rogers became a mother at the age of 15, and she shares the lessons she learned along her journey (many of them the hard way) in her book, which local editor Meredith McGee published.


You talk briefly in the book about your childhood. Could you talk a little bit about how those experiences formed the ideas you discuss in "Mother Wit"?


I'm the eighth of my parents' children. We're all about 11 months apart, and my older sisters and I helped my mom out. When we lived in Sharkey County, my brothers were out in the cotton fields, but we moved to Jackson when I was about 4. We lived in temporary housing for a while, and I knew how to see after a baby by the time I was 5. I was a mother for most of my childhood because I kept my siblings (who were) younger than me. I mostly stayed home (during that time). I'm very observant and quiet, but I pick up on things, so I was always watching and paying attention. My dad left when I was 6 or 7, and I was 15 when I had my first child.


You discuss how you later felt led to forgive your father. What helped you see the importance of forgiveness in that particular relationship?

A I don't know what the man was thinking, to be honest. We were already poor, but when I looked back, I thought that maybe his parents didn't do a good job. He saw something like that (abandonment) growing up: have a woman with a lot of kids and leave. He was getting out of all that noise—it was all of us in one house. So it helped me understand (what he was thinking), and it helped me raise my own kids.


Could you talk about what your experience with young motherhood was like?


(Becoming a young mother) was my fault, so I said, "I'm not gonna give him up." I did what I had to do, and my baby is 48 now. We're only 15 years apart, but I had a strong determination to hang in there with my kids. We played games and did puzzles, and I got up in the morning and got them ready for school. I got a GED when I was 17. My son was 2 (at the time), but I never stopped classes. I went every year. My health tried to keep me down, but I kept going. When my son got up into middle and high school, he would help me with my homework. I wasn't ashamed; I wanted to learn. Those children saved me—they kept me out of the streets.


If you had to pick one topic from your book for the young people of today to read, which would it be and why?


I would pick the chapter on family and relationships. It's got a lot in it, and it's got my most important points. Family relationships start with the parents. A lot of families have a lot of complications, and there are dysfunctional families in the world today. I see a lot of that. The parents are how it got like that—the parents' parents' parents. Kids started having kids, but parents have to train kids. Every child should have a job, and families should get acquainted and talk more. They should get off their chests what they're keeping in their minds.


Yes, you touch on the idea of families sharing more in "Mother Wit," especially regarding mental health. Why is that an important topic in today's society?


A lot of people throw their hands up on mental health, and a lot of people don't talk about it. My daughter was born with schizophrenia. She is disabled, and she was slow to develop. I was like a caretaker: I made sure everybody got to school, and I made sure everybody got to their doctor's appointments. I care about my daughter, and I love her, and people should feel like they can talk about (mental health) more.


Near the end of the book, you ask, "Who is responsible for a young girl's future?" How would you answer that question?


Her parents are partly responsible—a baby doesn't know anything when it comes into the world. They learn how to do everything, and the parents have to teach them. It's layered, and it's a hard job. A lot of people don't have patience for that, but it's not the kid's fault. But in the end, you've got to be able to go out on your own.

It's hard, it's expensive. It's why you need to finish high school and go to college: 18 isn't ready; 21 isn't ready. Take your time, and you'll have a home when you get finished, and you won't wind up in these streets. When I think of a young girl's future, I think of my future. I was 50 when everyone had moved out, and I finally got my own apartment, but I'm still trying to go to school and still trying to go to work.

Readers interested in learning more about Rogers's book can visit her blog at https://meredithetc.com/mother-wit. Copies of "Mother Wit" may be purchased directly from the publisher (Meredith Etc) or from Barnes and Noble's online selection.

Taylor McKay HathornWed, 31 Mar 2021 11:30:08 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/mar/31/mothers-advice-irma-mae-rogers-mother-wit/
‘Brown Money’ Introduces Black Children to Economics and Potential Careershttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/mar/03/brown-money-introduces-black-children-economics-an/

Warn Wilson Jr. has a deep desire to pass along the knowledge he did not learn when he was younger. "Brown Money," his first children's book, is his first attempt to share information with young people about careers in STEM areas—science, technology, engineering and math.

"This is everything I wish I'd known when I was young," he says. Now an electrical engineer living in Memphis, Wilson grew up in Jackson, attending Power APAC and Murrah High School before graduating with a bachelor's degree from Mississippi State University.

The 52-page work was published in 2019 after a friend suggested Wilson stop just talking about it and take the plunge. "I wrote the book in two days, illustrated it in three weeks, and in another month, I had a printed copy," Wilson says.

As incredible as this turnaround may seem, Wilson takes it in stride, insisting that once he is interested in a topic, he works at an amazing pace. Those interests vary, as Wilson finds himself interested in everything, it seems, from real estate, to the stock market, to engineering and art.

"When I was writing my children's book, I thought, 'What would I want my future children to know?' I have younger siblings and cousins, and that helped me think about it," he explains.

"My idea is that you should learn about everything you're interested in," he adds. "Try it all. Even if you fail, you can still get valuable information."

"Brown Money" seems to be doing well: Wilson has done several readings to elementary students in the Memphis area over Zoom, with more scheduled. "I've tried to introduce these concepts in an easy-to-chew format," he says. "I've got relatives in real estate, landowners and managers, but not every child gets to see that as a job. If you don't even know it exists, there's no way to find out."

But the science-and-hard-facts side remains only one facet of Wilson, as the  focused, young entrepreneur who hasn't even reached 30 yet is also an artist. He also created an illustration for every text page of the book,

"I've always loved drawing and painting," Wilson says. "For each page, I thought about what concept I was trying to get across. I sketched that out, and then created a painting for that page." The cover features a painting from a past series that fit the idea he was trying to convey.

To reinforce the concepts presented in his book, Wilson also created Brown Money: The Card Game. "It's a fun way for kids to remember the ideas in the book," Wilson claims. "There are occupation cards and penalty cards, and you earn or lose money depending on what you draw."

Wilson keeps himself busy, working a full-time job as an engineer and spending his nights and weekends writing and drawing. "I still love being an engineer and creating things," the artist says. "But I keep creating content for books, and drawing, and I want to keep turning that into motivational material."

In addition to his engineering job and budding career as a writer and artist, Wilson recently opened a consumer electronics business called Vondu Electronics (online at VonduElectronics.com/store)—keeping in line with his goal of having multiple, diverse income streams and continuing to learn more about the world around him so that he may pass that information to future leaders from his community and beyond.

"As an engineer and artist, I have always had a desire for creating new things. I love to see an idea manifest into a tangible object in the physical world," Wilson concludes. "I hope to use my academic insight and artwork to influence the next generation of Black thinkers and creators."

Find "Brown Money," its sequel "Brown Money 2"—set to release this spring—and the card game, as well as his second book, "Royal Counsel," and more at WarnWilson.com.

Michele BakerWed, 03 Mar 2021 12:37:29 -0600https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/mar/03/brown-money-introduces-black-children-economics-an/
Privilege and the High Cost of Being a ‘Fortunate One’https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/jan/06/privilege-and-high-cost-being-fortunate-one/

In a narrative that smacks of privilege while also reckoning with its insidiousness, Ed Tarkington spins a southern yarn about manhood, family and desire in his latest book, "The Fortunate Ones."

The novel begins abruptly—Charlie Boykin is delivering the news of a fallen comrade to a heartbroken family when a news story stops him in his tracks: Arch Creigh, an affluent young politician, has committed suicide. While the entire group is horrified at such a revelation, the narrator's alarm is personal, and he tells the family that he once knew the deceased.

His relationship with Arch is the axis upon which "The Fortunate Ones" pivots, as the narrator rewinds his tale to its beginnings at a private, all-boys school in Nashville, and it soon becomes apparent that Charlie more than knew Arch Creigh. Arch was his assigned mentor at school, and the boys' bond deepened, with public professions of brotherhood and private confessions of desire.

This magnetism between Charlie, who grew up in near poverty in east Nashville, and Arch, who had known money and its pursuant privileges all his life, is the strongest feature of the novel, although its "moth to a flame" nature is evident from the outset. Charlie and Arch compete for the affections of a young woman who trusts Charlie with her secrets but Arch with her future, and the boys vye for the attentions of the adults of the novel, who are mired in scandals of their own doing (and undoing, to be sure).


The authorial decision to have an adult narrate a book that's largely about the antics of teenagers does eventually and unfortunately lend itself to the weakness of the novel, which I found to be the dialogue of the teenage protagonists.

Although an elevated vernacular is certainly expected for a group of wealthy Nashville teenagers, it comes across in many sections of the novel as stilted, with the adolescent characters sounding more like the elite adults they would become by the end of the novel and  making decisions that seem far more socially aware than is entirely believable.

This backward-storytelling does, however, allow Charlie to recognize his own selfishness, and while we see him edge toward growth and progress throughout the novel, "The Fortunate Ones" is not a moral tale. Charlie, though he is raised more humbly than his privileged peers, is as utilitarian as they are, taking advantage of the wealth around him to forge opportunities and relationships that he might not otherwise have.

He even does this at the expense of his first friend, Terrence, a Black boy whose grandmother helped raise Charlie before his mother elevated their social status by finding work in a very different world than the one in which she had previously raised her son. Terrence believes in the best of Charlie—in the Charlie he first knew—and the novel finds its greatest victory when Charlie eventually recognizes this potential. He confronts the racism and the privilege he had once been so steeped in and comes to see the political machinations that work to oppress his friend and the ways that he himself had been complicit in those machinations.

The glimmers of this more receptive Charlie  sustained both Terrence and me as a reader, as I found myself rooting for a character that made deeply flawed decisions while still seeming like a deeply human (and indeed, humane) person.

Despite Charlie's ability to win me over, I was not entirely convinced by Tarkington's portrayal of southern life—or perhaps the ritzy picture of life in Nashville simply did not ring true for me, a woman raised in a small town where many lived below the poverty line. I was, however, convinced by his portrayal of southern relationships, as I keenly recognized longing swathed in politeness, in feigned ignorance to spare another's feelings, in loyalty to the point that outsiders would consider senseless.

Therefore, for a southern reader, everyone in the novel behaves unforgivably but not inexplicably. Private pains lead to public decisions to choose, over and over again, to remain one of "the fortunate ones," proving the aptness of the novel's title.

Those interested in Tarkington's novel can tune in to a live chat with the author through Lemuria Books' Facebook page on Tuesday, Jan. 12, at noon, and hardcover, first-edition copies of the book are available for purchase at Lemuria.

Taylor McKay HathornWed, 06 Jan 2021 09:57:44 -0600https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/jan/06/privilege-and-high-cost-being-fortunate-one/
Transforming Ourselves During Times of Crisishttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/apr/29/transforming-ourselves-during-times-crisis/

Sometimes, we as people are thrust into circumstances over which we have no control. Erica Quinn Thompson, co-founder of the Magnolia Medical Foundation, released a daily devotional titled "The Transforming: 31 Days of Process for Purpose" in January to help others navigate these changes.

"Transformation isn't always about improvement. Sometimes it's about just rethinking things, and knowing that any transformation always begins with us. We are wonderfully made just the way we are, but we have to be able to understand the process (of change)," she says.

The wife and mother of two teenagers came up with the idea for the book while reading old journals that detailed the struggles and changes she had experienced through her life.

"I realized that things I was writing 10 years ago would be great for someone else, because they're all the things that I was questioning, and I felt that other women were probably having some similar questions," Thompson says. "I started just chronicling them into a daily devotional, and 'The Transforming' was born."

The book speaks to issues of abandonment, fear, self-empowerment and comparison, contains situational life lessons, and emphasizes the importance of understanding that change has purpose.

"We have to shift the mindset of how we're going to think about this situation and look at the positives instead of focusing on the negatives, thinking about what am I to learn from this as opposed to what am I the victim of ... the process of taking a situation and learning and growing from it, as opposed to allowing it to basically paralyze you from moving to your divine purpose," Thompson says.

The devotional is targeted for women of all ages and stages of life and walks readers through a 31-day process. Each entry is paired with a Bible scripture and words of affirmation.

"For young women, (the book) shows them that process. For older women, you may have had change as an adult, but there's still hope to go back and make sure you're still reaching your purpose."

The Natchez native describes COVID-19 as a prime example of the theme featured in her book: that we may not be able to control our circumstances, but we can control how we react to change and what we take away from the situation.

"What do you want to be on the other side of this? We now have time to really reflect. (The pandemic) has created an environment where we are more cognisant of the people who are in our world, too. ... The situation is providing a way for us to appreciate the moments we have with the people we care about," Thompson says.

In her spare time, Thompson enjoys reading, gardening, traveling and spending time with her family and friends.

Find "The Transforming: 31 Days of Process for Purpose" on Amazon or visit transformingmovement.org to learn more.

Jenna GibsonWed, 29 Apr 2020 11:41:21 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/apr/29/transforming-ourselves-during-times-crisis/
Katy Simpson Smith on ‘The Everlasting’https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/mar/18/katy-simpson-smith-everlasting/

Jackson native Katy Simpson Smith's third novel "The Everlasting" is, at its core, a centuries-long story of love and equality. Four distinct characters, separated by time, find themselves in precarious tangles with not only the main setting of the novel, Rome, but also within themselves. Smith, an expert in history, offers questions surrounding topics such as salvaging a doomed marriage for the sake of one's child, abortion within a Roman royal court and being a gay corpse preserver.

Smith recently talked about what went into writing this incredibly ambitious narrative.

I would like to start before the book even begins. Can you talk about the very striking dedication, "To the Boys," that you wrote at the beginning of the book?

Yeah, no one's ever asked me about the dedication. It is both a cry and complaint against the way that masculinity so often performs in our society, but it also ... invite(s) men into this world and asks them to participate in it. So, it's loving and a little bit admonishing, I think. And I wrote this book, in some way, to all the boys that I know.

This is a woman's novel in the best ways possible. It's powerful for women, for their sexual desires, so going off of that, why Tom? I found him—and maybe from my severe projection onto your character—to be the most interesting character, ironically, despite his section being very modern. How you implanted his story among these ancient tales is very exciting to me.

Tom was, I think, the hardest character for me to write. That's the thing; he's living in my era, so I should know where he's coming from, (but) I think it's hard for me, in writing him, that he is a heterosexual white man. I think one of the things fiction does so beautifully is allow us to have empathy with, and to root for, the underdog. As an author, it's much easier for me to write about women, queer people, people of different races who are marginalized or oppressed in some way, and I had to figure out how to make Tom sympathetic.

I give him an overthinker's brain, and I put him in this difficult situation, and I burden him with this dark progression he needs all in an attempt to figure out what can bind me, as a woman, to him, as a male character. It was a weird but fun challenge to give myself. Near the end of writing him, I fell in love with him the way I can with all of my characters. He is a more passive character than the other three, which maybe speaks to our modern condition. He's allowed to kind of drift along without really taking a stand for anything, perhaps until it's too late, which is maybe a position a lot of us find ourselves in.

Something that really struck me is the theme of "layers," both literal and metaphorical, that covers Rome, layers of grime and history. It's the fishing hook that's the central theme throughout these narratives, but going beyond that, these mirroring struggles interlock these characters that are thousands of years apart. Have you ever thought about your book in terms of layers?

Absolutely, when I first traveled to Rome several years ago, one of the strange things I noticed was the "layered" quality that you picked up on. It's a city that doesn't throw its history in the trash bin; it keeps it and builds on top of it and on top of it so that when you're walking around, you see a 21st-century hair salon in a Renaissance Palace that's build on top of an ancient Roman temple, and it's all visible. It's different from in the South where we have some visible architecture, but you don't see a lot, and it can vary.

That was very exciting for me, and it reinforced my own philosophy about history, which is that it's all circular and we're all smooshed together. All of these things that happened to people in the past are still, in some ways, happening to us now. So, I love the idea of setting a novel in a place that embraces those layers.

Was there a process to writing "The Everlasting"? Trying to understand how you decided to start the novel with Tom and work backward threw me for a loop.

The structure was definitely the hardest part. I initially wrote this book as four separate novellas and then realized that I didn't want them to be so distinct from one another. ... I also knew that I didn't want to move chronologically forward in a way that would allow people to say, "Okay, that was the past, and this was slightly more recently, and this is the present day. We're all fine and only moving upward in terms of civilization and evolution."

I wanted to somehow convey the sense that what happened in the seventh century is very relevant. Maybe this ninth-century monk is a little bit more civilized than this 16th-century woman. It's all relative, basically. So I had this borderline mapped out on how this could all work. Fortunately, I had some friends who read the manuscript and listed my various options to help me think about what would make the most sense to readers but also achieve the structural mission that I had.

I love your constantly shifting stances on religion, sex, sexuality, gender, crumbling marriages and pregnancy, to name a few highlights. Is there a message that you want to shine above the rest or anything that you're especially proud about in this novel?

I think at its very core, I was trying to figure out what it means to be good, specifically in the context of love. I think I was feeling confused when I was writing it about the ways in which love makes us do bad things so often and yet how it's a thing that turns us into our better selves.

What does it look like when you fall in love? How can love make you better? How can it make you perform these sacrifices that are extraordinary? Also, how can it mislead you and take you by the nose down this very dark path? The novel speaks on the love of God, the love of family, romantic love with a person and the love of an unborn child.

I think my favorite voice has to be your Satan character. Can you explain whether there was a process of writing him? Did you finish the manuscript and then add in the Satan monologues? What role do you see him playing throughout the novel?

He came in very early on in the process. When a character I was writing asked a rhetorical question and I didn't want to leave the question hanging in the air—but I didn't know, as the author, how to answer it—a very sarcastic voice came in and answered it for me, and I was like, "Oh, that's definitely the devil."

Then it became this kind of combo where anytime a character would ask a rhetorical question, he would answer it. He started out as more of a malign presence trying to lead them astray to cause mischief in their lives, but through the writing process, I realized that he was a character, too, who had had his heart broken. God had casted him out of heaven. Here was the deity who had chosen to forgive literally every single person on Earth but not Satan, like the ex-boyfriend or whatever. I thought, "Oh, that makes him so human, and he's so able to relate to these people who are going through similar things."

Katy Simpson Smith will be signing copies of "The Everlasting" on Tuesday, March 31, at Lemuria Bookstore (4465 Interstate 55, Suite 202) beginning at 5 p.m. For more information, call 601-366-7619 or visit lemuriabooks.com. The novel is available for purchase in physical, digital and audiobook versions at Amazon or harpercollins.com.

Carlton McGroneWed, 18 Mar 2020 10:30:00 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/mar/18/katy-simpson-smith-everlasting/
Exploring Alternate Worlds Within a Contemporary Spacehttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/jan/08/exploring-alternate-worlds-within-contemporary-spa/

There's no greater joy than falling into a piece of metafiction—fiction that is about fiction—with little to no pretense. A consistently rising trend within literary fiction, these works tempt the veil of reality, testing the boundary of allegorical allusion. I'm constantly drawn to incredibly surreal fiction because of its frank writing, presenting real-life controversies in very unconventional ways.

That said, to call "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau" metafiction wouldn't be exactly accurate because it manages a blending of speculative discussions, meta writing, surreal situations and almost-fantastical realism that, by all means, should result in a very messy manuscript.

However, Michael Zapata is clearly no stranger to contemporary high concept. In the span of a very tight novel, he bounces through parallel Earths with the mission of preserving various fictional histories.

This novel is told through a dual narrative that takes place both throughout time and within fictional worlds. One such modern-day point of view comes from Saul Drower, who discovers an unpublished manuscript of the titular, and relatively unknown, Adana Moreau.

Tasked by his recently deceased grandfather to return the manuscript to Adana's son, Maxwell Moreau, Saul treks through the ruined streets of a post-Katrina New Orleans to preserve the memories of an author lost to history.

Our other voice comes from a mid-1900s Maxwell Moreau as he goes through his personal bildungsroman—a journey through the protagonist's formative years—alongside Saul's narrative. We learn of Adana's legacy as an immigrant, mother and author, publishing her instant-hit, science-fiction novel "The Lost City" and writing the unpublished "Model Earth" just before passing. Beginning even before his birth, Maxwell's story takes the reader through various moments of his early years, fleshing out New Orleans and the South through the lens of a pirate's son.

I was enthralled by Maxwell's and Saul's fascination with infinite parallel dimensions, the science in which Maxwell specializes while a professor at a university in Chile. Combining this traditionally science-fiction idea with the contemporary notion of "history" propels the novel to untampered philosophical heights. Zapata essentially erases "actual" history and presents alternate timelines. By doing so, he offers reflections on the purpose of recording history if infinite universes, and therefore infinite possibilities, exist. In effect, he is questioning whether or not we are experiencing "actual" history on Earth as we know it.

These sort of existential ponderences only serve to heighten the extremity of Saul's central task as he struggles to quite literally preserve and pass on the memories and history of a woman shoved aside within the realm of science-fiction writing. Like his late historian grandfather, Saul articulates that one's memories construct the entirety of nations, whether they be genuine or fictitious, and a true death only follows the end of one's memories. Zapata demonstrates this poetic matter in a scene where a German immigrant, being born before the unification of Germany, insists that she is a native of the Kingdom of Prussia. Despite the eventual rise of a Frankenstein culture from the destruction and re-pasting of another, the long-dead immigrant's memories play in Saul's grandfather's cassettes.

Mid-way through, Zapata cements his thoughts on these rather complex notions by offering his own answer to the question that he has presented, ushering the novel into its initial building moment that makes us latch on to Saul's unlikely quest. Saul's grandfather's words ring out: "History, like fiction, was illusory, if not an outright line, but we exist because of it and it existed because of us." His grandfather's memory in-hand, Saul is determined to make sure that this ultimately forgotten writer be remembered by not only her son but the world.

Zapata does not hesitate to give a knowing wink through his characters. Much like his protagonist's grandfather's published collections of historic writings, Zapata's own memory, his personal fictional history, will be preserved with this novel. Effortlessly twining reality's conflicts and societal issues with a mind-bending concept, he leaves us wondering if the world that we're experiencing is, in fact, an "actual" history.

Carlton McGroneWed, 08 Jan 2020 10:30:04 -0600https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/jan/08/exploring-alternate-worlds-within-contemporary-spa/
A Man, His Dog and the Pursuit of Happinesshttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/dec/23/man-his-dog-and-pursuit-happiness/

Facets of mental illness often implode when a writer attempts to record such personal, fictional journeys onto the page. It can be difficult for fiction to grasp the creeping horrors of a very intangible depression. Mary Miller's masterful hold on her protagonist, Louis, perfectly demonstrates helplessness in the wake of detachment while grappling with one's notions of happiness.

"Biloxi" begins with a simple-enough plot that gradually unfolds, revealing an almost outlandish narrative that consistently grounds itself at its most critical moments. Louis, introduced as an early-60s divorcee, decides to, on a whim, purchase a Biloxian's dog, something completely out of character for this strait-laced, routine-driven retiree. Suffice it to say, self-inflicted hijinks ensue, and with his newfound best friend in tow, Louis has a front seat to the implosion of his self-constructed haven.

With this initial setup, it becomes that much more difficult to construct a cohesive review of this novel. Miller is wonderful, an incredible delight to read. She's able to pack a number of overlying themes into a fairly straightforward story that abuses the unsuspecting Louis McDonald. Miller's bullying of her character does not draw much, if any, sympathy toward Louis as he is shown to be the root of his own issues.

From its very domestic beginnings,  Miller's narrative seems interested in the concept of change and to what ends one will go to in order to avoid facing an inevitable grand metamorphosis. Simultaneously fighting against and submitting to this change, Louis renders himself helpless, trapped within his home, avoiding long-forgotten responsibilities while only managing what is right in front of him.

Louis is a character bundled with hatred, both inward and external. He's overtly violent and hateful toward minorities and women, peering at what makes them imperfect and therefore lesser in his eyes. He's a self-righteous hero for treating little people as if they were "regular," and while he can't stop himself for scrutinizing estranged women's minute details, Louis' chivalry dissuades him from voicing his complaints of the grotesque.

Placed in a situation where he is forced to adapt so drastically, Louis begins to question his own happiness, what it means to be happy and if he had ever felt happiness. It doesn't take long before he stumbles upon the realization that, well before his divorce, he had faced an inexplicable detachment from both his wife and his daughter, slowly relinquishing his familiarity with the world he's lived in for 60 years.

Layla, Louis's unforeseen furry companion, immediately consumes his every waking thought, his identity. Personifying her, comparing her to her daughter and ex-wife, Louis' abandonment trauma finally has an outlet. Deflecting from his actual personal issues, Louis promises to give this dog everything that he couldn't provide for his ravaged family. Rather than speaking to them, Louis spends almost the entirety of the novel dodging their phone calls to further indulge in spoiling Layla with trans fats and carbs, blind to the fact that he's slowly impeding his new best friend just as he's killing himself.

The notion of offing himself does creep menacingly, if not comically, throughout the novel, interwoven between almost losing his dog, being robbed by a potential lover and the scheduled bashing of a bird's skull against his widow.   Like the bird that's intent on self-harm, Louis remains firm about doing nothing both about the bird's distracting noise and his depression. In this, Miller illustrates the choking hold of one's masculinity, allowing it to determine Louis's happiness and constantly causing him to feel unsettled in a familiar environment, unable to ask plea for help. Poor, unemployed and utterly alone, Louis is plagued with suicide's looming tangle; however, the reader inevitably forms an attachment with Louis in the wake of his raging war with himself.

"Biloxi" manages to remain surprising until its final, finite sentence, leaving Louis in a position of trepidation, similar to how we see him at the start of this novel. Weathered by an internal trek of self-discovery and reconnecting, he is presented with a new, better start to the next phase of his life. Miller demands your attention with this novel and promises a story jammed with prosperity.

Carlton McGroneMon, 23 Dec 2019 13:14:05 -0600https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/dec/23/man-his-dog-and-pursuit-happiness/
Q&A: Brittney Morris on 'Slay' and Celebrating Blacknesshttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/nov/01/q-brittney-morris-slay-and-celebrating-blackness/

Brittney Morris, a Corvallis, Ore., native, visited Jackson on Sept. 24 as part of a book tour celebrating her first published book, "Slay" (Simon Pulse, 2019), which released the same day. The novel follows the story of a young, black girl named Kiera who creates an underground virtual reality game for black people only, where they can celebrate their blackness. Once the game becomes mainstream, though, Kiera finds herself struggling to balance her life as a black student at a majority white school, her home life, and her life as her online avatar, Emerald. Brittney Morris sat down with the Jackson Free Press in September to give some words about her life and how "Slay" came about.

One of my favorite aspects about "Slay" is that pulls from so many cultural aspects of black culture that I've experienced or that I've seen through meme culture, especially. What made you want to write a book about black culture?

Growing up, I was the only black kid in my high school, and I was the first black kid to graduate from my high school. So I kind of became the black culture expert. People expected me to listen to certain music, eat certain foods and know certain media references and all that. Since I grew up in a really strict home, I didn't know any of that, so I felt really under qualified to be people's black cultural point of contact. My classmates would ask me super problematic questions like, "Can you teach us how to speak ghetto?" Back then I was like, "I want to make friends, I want to be nice to people so I'll do my best to walk you through the mechanics of ebonics and all that stuff." It was a whole mess. But going all the way through college and corporate jobs with it, I hadn't really acknowledged what it meant to me to be a black woman in that kind of an environment. Seeing "Black Panther" was like the first time where I walked in a room full of black people and felt total, unconditional acceptance—that I didn't have to put these criteria on myself. I was black enough as I was whatever cards I had been dealt. That's where the idea for the cards in the book came from, and capturing why that kaleidoscopic view of blackness exists globally and how even though not all the cards relate to me, they're still part of black culture globally, and that's still something to be celebrated.

The game was a space for only black people. In order to get a passcode, you had to be black. The game's front page addresses all gamers as Nubian kings and queens. I'm not a gamer. But can you talk about what the gaming world is like for black gamers?

Absolutely. I don't actually play a lot of online games or co-op games, like the online socializing, so I actually avoid a lot of the racism that's in it. But there's a lot of racial slurs that get thrown around in those communities, especially when you show any traits of African American vernacular English. If they hear you speaking any kind of slang, they'll zero in on it and call you names. If you're really good at a game, and they suspect you're cheating, they'll throw all kinds of totally vulgar language at you that is often racially based. There's a lot of harassment that goes on on online gaming, specifically for gamers of color.

I know you're a gamer, so were there any games in particular you used to pull inspiration to create "Slay"?

Kind of. So there's a game called "PUBG," where you can login with a VR headset and be a virtual avatar talking to people. That was a huge inspiration for the baseline and then I had heard of "Yu-gi-oh!." I haven't actually seen it, but like the card duels and everything, that whole concept popped out at me. I mostly play like story games that have big issues in them. The concept of tackling big issues with video games was very familiar to me. One of my favorite video games is called "Papo & Yo" and you play as a 9-year-old black boy in Brazil. You have to interact with this 30-foot monster. When the monster eats a frog he turns into a flaming demon and tries to kill you. But otherwise he's this docile creature who is caring for you and stuff. It turns out at the end of the game that the whole game is an allegory for a boy grappling with having an alcoholic parent. When I finish games like that, I have to stare at the wall for a minute and think about life. Inspiration from all over the place.

Why do you think that when (black people) create our own spaces for ourselves that it's often immediately written off as racist?

I think that is because at face value it seems discriminatory, but when you really start to take it apart, we need our own spaces because the general space is not for us. It's hard to explain to white people why we need our own space until they're in a situation like that. I see a lot of infographics on Facebook about this lately, but we walk up to their door, we say, "Hey, can we have the same things that you guys have? Can we have representation in the media? Can we have black women executives in commercials for entrepreneurship and for learning? Can we not be a prop in your college diversity trailer?" And they go, "No, we're not going to do that." So we go, "Well, we're going to start our own colleges, we're going to have our own movies then, we're going to create our own etcetera where we do belong." And then they turn around and go, "Hey, wait a minute, you can't do that. When you look at the logic for reverse racism, it really isn't there. All black spaces are really needed.

In your acknowledgements, you mention that the book has been a journey of you discovering and reconciling your own experience with blackness. What did you learn about yourself?

Getting more acclimated with what it means to me to be a strong, black woman is constantly changing and evolving as the world evolves. For example, the police brutality topic. For a long time, in college, I would watch every single video of that. I would put every name to memory, and I felt like it was necessary. I talked myself into believing that if you don't take on all this information about police brutality and every case so that you can argue with people when anti-Black Lives Matter conversations come up, I'll be doing my people a disservice. But it took me a long time to acknowledge that internalizing all that anxiety about all of the "Say your name" hashtags that I have been flying around, it does damage to your psyche. Seeing black bodies in the street, it's not my responsibility to take on that burden. I have to preserve my mental health. That was a new thing that came up for me that I've still been reconciling with—because on the one hand we don't want to forget and we do want to cite those cases when it does come up. Hopefully, I'll be able to stop saying next time, but predictably next time, we'll be able to cite back to what's happened before us. It's all a balance.

There are several conversations about race throughout the book and one of my favorite scenes in particular is where Steph explains to Harper and Wyatt why the "Slay" game isn't racist (a read I was very much here for). This was a pretty deep conversation, especially for high schoolers. What made you want to include this conversation in the book?

Good question. I included those conversations in this book because those are the type of conversations that I wish I had had with my classmates when I was there. Knowing what I know now, I would probably be Steph. I probably wouldn't stay in the school. They'd have to kick me out. But those are the conversations I wish I had started when I was younger. I included a lot of that in the book.

With Claire, or Cicada, we see her asking Kiera if she's black enough because she's biracial, which I think is another facet to the idea of blackness. What point did you want to make with this?

When I was a kid, my mom organized what she called the "black family barbecue." ... Every year, we'd invite all sorts of black families from across Oregon to Corvallis to have a barbecue. ... When we finally got to the barbecue, a lot of the biracial kids were lighter than me, so there was this undertone that they were half-black, which unfortunately is a part of the black community. I'm married to a white man, and if we were to have kids, our kids would be biracial. So we would have to be having this whole conversation with them about their unique identity and all of that. With Claire's character, I really wanted to show that inner struggle and questioning of like, "Am I black enough to be able to play the game?" And the verdict ends up being, "Of course, you need this game as just like everybody else with black in them." But that's a really valid question that a lot of biracial people struggle with and ask themselves. Going hand and hand with that, she also has to reconcile with the fact that her white mother wouldn't be allowed to play and why, even though she's someone that Claire loves dearly. There are a lot of big questions for Claire that she has to overcome throughout the book.

Dr. Abbot was sort of straddling the fence on his views about the game. He recognized the need for it, but he also felt he did nothing in fostering diversity and inclusion. What do you think he learned from playing the game?

I love that question. I think at the beginning Dr. Abbot approaches it from an academic standpoint, where he's like a lot of non-gaming adults who like to look at video games and go, "Oh well, we don't take it seriously," or they think it's like inherently toxic. When they hear something like "Slay," where it's a black-only video game, it's really easy to look at that and think on the surface it sounds pretty exclusionary, textbook definition, right? But once you start playing the game, for him, the turning point was finding out the duel cards were based on black culture and black history. So when the Satchmo card comes up, he's like, "Now, wait a minute, he's one of my favorite characters." Honestly, I had so much fun writing him.

Although the book is heavily focused around Kiera, you do delve into other stories, particularly people who play the game. And we see Slayers (players of the game) all around the world. What was the purpose behind this?

Absolutely. I knew from the very beginning that if I was going to write a book about the African diaspora and the global black populace, I was going to have to include a lot of different stories, a lot of different genders, a lot of different socioeconomic backgrounds, a lot of different levels of gaming experience, parents, non-parents, a lot of different ages. Between John, Maurice, Kiera, Claire, Steph and Q. Diamond, I covered as many possible different backgrounds as I could and several different geographies. That was my attempt at all of that, to show what the game means for one black trans woman in New Orleans and one black businessman in Japan and one black professor in Boston. I wanted to represent as many experiences as I possibly could.

Let's talk about Malcolm. He obviously represented a hotep man with strong views on the black family, black men and the black agenda. What made you structure him this way as opposed to your typical black teen who, in fact, loves video games?

I've always been able to name black people whose opinions on blackness I heavily disagree with. There was a congresswoman recently who said that white supremacy is not a problem for black people and that black on black crime is the problem, and I was about to throw my phone. I think in a lot of books that I've read where the book itself is written by white people or for the white gaze, black people can do no wrong. The black character in the book is supposed to be saintly, the positive uplifting friend. They're supposed to be the "Girl, go get your man" character or "Girl, you don't need no man—let's go party tonight" character. And I felt like as a black author, it's my responsibility along with every other black author who wants to tackle black issues globally to acknowledge some of the troublesome stuff that we say and some of the problematic viewpoints that crop up in our community. Seeing Gen Z gives me so much hope in the world. The millennial generation was like, "Take no nonsense." Gen Z is like, "Yo, why is our planet on fire? It's your fault." So, they're not here for anybody's B.S., so it felt like the right time to tackle the hotepery, especially since a lot of hoteps are all over Instagram. They'll post these videos where they are like, "You know, black women, if you were to eat like we did in the motherland, you wouldn't have a menstrual cycle, and your body wouldn't be trying to get rid of toxins." Crazy, anti science. It's craziness, so it felt like Gen Z could take this information. I think Gen Z has seen all of the crazy hotepery online that goes down. It just felt like the right time to have a character like Malcolm.

Why do you think it took Kiera so long to see that her dreams and vision for her life post-graduation were actually Malcolm's and that he was problematic? Was it love or something more?

I think part of it might have been love, but I think at that point since Malcolm has clearly done a grandiose display of not-love, I think at that point, she felt like as a black woman, she was supposed to support black men. Calling the cops. I feel the same way she does about calling the cops. I can't imagine a situation where I would call the cops on a black man because I know what that can end in so fast. Steph coming in with the "You're still an individual (and) still deserve respect and safety first," was really the eye-opening thing for Kiera.

I love in the end how Kiera is able to tell her parents the need she felt she had been restricting certain aspects of herself and that she felt didn't fit their definition of black or who she is supposed to be. And they were receptive to her feelings and responded accordingly. Sometimes in the black community, it's hard to communicate to our parents, especially those who grew up with a certain generation, that "My 'black' is unique." What were you hoping to accomplish by including this moment?

I feel like a lot that particular conversation comes down to the millennial generation and the boomer generation. So, my parents are boomers and I'm a millennial and our views on blackness are vastly different. And I also think the millennial generation is a lot more open minded when it comes to parenting and giving your children the floor, giving them the benefit of the doubt and treating them like their opinions matter. Growing up I was told to sit down, shut up and go to church. So, that conversation was really a whole generational conversation. It was a lot of like, "Hey, older generations, we respect you and understand the struggle that you've been through and the experiences that you've amassed, but also the world that we live in is changing and there are a lot of elements of blackness that are changing. They're constantly coming and going in and out of our black identity." It was kind of an invitation to explore that as a group, all together. It was a conversation and an invitation.

We see a ton of different references to black culture. How many cultural references did you take as inspiration?

What I did while I was planning the novel, which took like a few hours, I just sat down and I was like I need a whole bunch of cultural cards. Brittney, talk about your culture. Go! I just started thinking about all the cookouts I've been to and all the things I've bonded over with black people on Twitter, like what are some punchlines that I've heard, some really strong cultural elements that I've heard. Mac and cheese is a big one. Angie Thomas is always on Twitter going off about someone putting peas in the mac and cheese. Then, I started thinking about musical icons, we got Micheal Jackson, we got Prince. Beyonce Bayou was a place in the book. I just started rapid fire listing everything that I could think of within my culture, and then I started googling African dishes and stuff, and fufu came up. That's when I started researching questions like "Where is this served?" and "How prevalent is it?" I looked up on Twitter to see how casually it's brought up in conversation. That's outside of my culture, so I didn't want to be like, "Yeah, Africans love fufu," and have everybody in Africa be like, "What? What is that?" So, I really did my research for the stuff that wasn't part of my specific culture, and by the time I finished, I had like 30 cards listed out in all three categories, and I was ready to write the book.

Is there any possibility that this game could become something real? I'm not a gamer, but I'd love to play.

I would love that so much. There hasn't been talk lately. I would love if someone would buy the rights to the game, but a tv show is in the works. I just can't name who it's with.

There are obviously going to be readers who aren't black that read this novel and won't be able to relate to the cultural references or to what it's like being black. What, if anything, do you want them to take from this novel?

This book is, among a lot of things, a lesson in identity and an exploration of identity. Kiera, throughout the book, grows from beyond taking on the labels that everyone has given her—like her mom implies that a strong black woman "knows how to carry herself, knows how to speak and read like a white person or can blend in." Steph, on the other hand, is very much a strong, black woman who doesn't care how she talks, and people can just deal with it. Kiera is getting a lot of lessons in what it means to be a black woman, and she has to figure it out for herself. So what I hope this book prompts is an exploration in what labels people have taken on—(those) that they've taken all the characteristics along with it or (those) that people expect them to be, but that they aren't. Something I've been asking schools as I go around Jackson is, "What type of label have you taken on that makes you different than the people around you?" So maybe among your friends maybe you're the black one, maybe you're the white one, maybe you're the tall one, maybe you're the smart one, maybe you're the fat one, etc. The example that I used is that I do a lot of yoga, and I'm a size 12-14, so in a lot of those classes, I'm considered the fat one. People expect me to eat certain foods, they expect me to not like to workout, they expect me to be self-conscious at the beach, and none of that is me. It took me a long time to accept that and go into that, so I think people who have been handed their identities, I'm hoping so much that this book prompts them to say, "Wait a minute, that's not actually who I am, I'm okay with not meeting your expectations or stereotypes."

How does it feel to finally have it out and put something out that's not only authentic, but also so unapologetically black?

Oh my goodness, so cathartic. It's incredible, honestly. I've been writing for years and years and years, and this feels like the book of my heart. As I was writing, I was like, "This is going to be the book that starts my career." I could feel it the whole time. So, to have it on shelves today is indescribable. I'm so grateful, so lucky that there's been so much love and support behind the book and behind me. I'm so grateful every morning when I wake up.

Aliyah VealFri, 01 Nov 2019 11:49:24 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/nov/01/q-brittney-morris-slay-and-celebrating-blackness/
‘Jackson’ Regales a Laborious, History-Packed Talehttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/oct/30/jackson-regales-laborious-history-packed-tale/

Despite the leaps of progress in our capital city, its less-than-glamorous roots come as no shock to natives or migrants. Often, a forced encounter with that bloody history is met with drastic denial and resistance, especially when experiencing this turmoil through an all-encompassing narrative. However, giving a courageous lens to curious readers can present a reflective commentary on an era overflowing with ignorance. Boasting a digestible, engrossing title, "Jackson" aims to portray the titular city at the height of one of its most disastrous moments in history.

In this novel, Austin, Texas, resident Cindy Marabito constructs a narrative in the vein of her influencers, namely Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell and Eudora Welty. At its very core, "Jackson" is a novel about smashing prejudice and unburying genuine love for a wide variety of people, despite differences. It examines the treatment of the mentally ill, toxic masculinity and even the maturing lineage of feminism.

The story, which is set in 1970 Jackson, follows the aptly named Jody Luther, a 15-year-old white southerner who transfers into Murrah High School on the historic day that black students were finally allowed to attend. Marabito magnificently runs with this initial premise, sketching iconic black-and-white photos of armed soldiers reluctantly escorting children onto the premises. Passive racism and silent hatred ooze from Jody's classmates who are suddenly squashed into a classroom under the care of a black teacher.

Jody, herself, presents one of the biggest triumphs and tragic failures of the novel. In some ways she is a cliche white hero; she is strong-willed and not easily bent toward the whim of others, thanks to the enlightened household she grew up in with her forward-thinking mother, Grace. Still, being a high school student, Jody is woefully unaware of her safety and privilege until she is forced to research Emmett Till, the 14-year-old black boy murdered by white men in Money, Miss., with her black classmate.

However, in several instances within the book, Jody more closely resembles a rambling object than a human being. Told entirely in first-person, Jody's inner thoughts are strangely analytical and unfeeling in the wake of unfamiliar, morally corrupt occurrences. She comes across as a character who regularly experiences disassociation, which would be understandable considering the life she had lived taking care of her mentally decaying mother.

Jody's inner dialogue ironically makes the narrative that much more impersonal, drawing the reader's attention toward her long-winded explanations and away from whatever point she may or may not be making.

As Jody mentions early in the novel, she has always been a fan of history, and the author is never afraid to flex this particular muscle through the portrayals of her characters. Marabito's fascination with the various social contracts hidden within Mississippi's climate is what makes this novel so compelling. As his name was mentioned, novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald's influence is also entangled throughout the narrative.

Big Jim's family is one worthy of the racially obsessed Tom Buchanan as he is characterized as the most immediate threat Jody faces in her everyday life. Men, in general, play a chaotic role in Jody's story. Marabito capitalizes on the sheer vile nature of the most basic instincts of white, southern men, displaying how the trait contaminates offspring and those within their vicinity.

Jody and her younger sister are, both physically and morally, shown as foils to the intolerable Big Jim and Jim Jr. Meanwhile, Jody's "insane" mother ends up being the one to teach her the value of equality, while the remaining members of her family idly encouraging racist tendencies only serves to punctuate Marabito's underlying criticism of the social treatment of the mentally ill—however sparse and disconnected that particular storyline feels from the rest of the novel.

Despite its various weaknesses, "Jackson" achieves, and surpasses, what it sets out to accomplish. While Marabito may not be the most elegant when it comes to her prose and scene construction, her surrounding cast of utterly uncomfortable characters feels unique to this familiar yet out-of-reach world. With it, Marabito has bottled the hopeless despair of a Jackson forced to integrate in 1970.

Carlton McGroneWed, 30 Oct 2019 06:00:00 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/oct/30/jackson-regales-laborious-history-packed-tale/
Kiese Laymonhttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/jan/30/kiese-laymon/

Author Kiese Laymon, suspended from college for taking out a library book without permission, can assume he's been forgiven by the library community.

Laymon, whose memoir "Heavy" was one of last year's most acclaimed works, has won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. The award, announced Sunday, comes with a cash prize of $5,000. It is presented by the American Library Association.

"I can laugh about it now, but it took me two decades to be able to talk about it," said Laymon, who in "Heavy" writes bluntly of his troubled childhood in Mississippi.

"It was the most shameful time of my life, especially if you're a black boy in Mississippi and you're always taught that education is the way out."

Laymon received the Carnegie medal for nonfiction, and Rebecca Makkai the medal for fiction for her novel "The Great Believers," which looks back on the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. Makkai, a National Book Award finalist last fall, recalled spending enough time at Illinois' Lake Bluff Public Library that she could probably find the shelf with Lois Lowry's books "blindfolded."

Libraries have shaped her reading, and writing. She based part of her debut novel, "The Borrower," in a library. For "The Great Believers," her research included looking through old periodicals at Chicago's Harold Washington Library Center.

"I read every back issue of the Windy City Times (Chicago's biggest gay weekly) from 1985 to 1992, as well as other LGBTQ publications from the late 80s," she wrote in a recent email. "While I was there, I wound up looking through sources like Gourmet Magazine and Chicago Magazine as well, to remind myself, for instance, what people would have eaten for a fancy dinner out in 1986. Sometimes just a single ad could evoke a whole scene."

The Carnegie winners were announced during the library association's annual winter meeting, being held in Seattle. On Monday, the association will announce winners of the Newbery and Caldecott prizes, along with other top honors for children's literature.

Before getting in trouble at Mississippi's Millsaps College for failing to sign out for Stephen Crane's Civil War novel "The Red Badge of Courage" — "I did what everybody did at the time, dropped it on the floor and kicked it under the scanner," he explained — he had spent many worthwhile hours in libraries. His mother was a professor at Jackson State University and would leave him at the library while she worked.

"I've always been very, very thankful for librarians," he said. "I think the country sometimes sees them as low energy and not cutting edge, but it is something that they could look at a book like mine, which is sort of risky, and given it this award."

The Carnegie medals were established in 2012. Previous recipients include Jennifer Egan, Colson Whitehead and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Last year's winner for nonfiction, Sherman Alexie, declined the prize amid allegations of sexual harassment.

Wed, 30 Jan 2019 12:08:18 -0600https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/jan/30/kiese-laymon/
Cathead’s New Bourbon, Frock Fashions Opens and Lemuria’s ‘Photos with Paddington’https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/nov/21/catheads-new-bourbon-frock-fashions-opens-and-lemu/

Cathead Distillery’s new bourbon line, Old Soul bourbon whiskey, went on sale in liquor stores statewide on Friday, Nov. 16. Cathead produced 500 cases of Old Soul for this initial batch, which it will only sell within Mississippi.

Austin Evans, who co-founded the company with Richard Patrick, told the Jackson Free Press that Old Soul is a high-rye mash bill bourbon, which means it contains 21 percent rye, 75 percent corn and 4 percent malted barley. In order for an alcoholic beverage to be considered bourbon, Evans says, it must be at least 51 percent corn, aged in a previously unused American oak barrel and distilled with less than 160-proof alcohol. Old Soul comes in at 90 proof.

“Richard and I have been working on this bourbon for about four years now,” Evans says. “We took several barrels and blended them together to create our final product. The result is a nice mix of vanilla and caramel flavors with some spice to it from the rye. It makes for a perfect sipping bourbon that’s also great for cocktails.”

Cathead was the first legal distillery to open in Mississippi. Evans and Patrick originally opened the business in Madison in 2010 and moved it to Jackson in December 2015.

Cathead Distillery (422 S. Farish St.) is open for tours and tastings starting at 3 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and at 1 p.m. on Saturdays. The business also has a bar full of local beers, a retail shop and spaces for visitors to play cornhole. For more information, call 601-667-3038 or visit catheaddistillery.com.

Frock Fashions Opens in The District at Eastover

Women’s clothing boutique Frock Fashions opened a new location inside The District at Eastover on Saturday, Nov. 10. The 1,500-square-foot shop, located next door to Beckham Jewelry, carries clothing, shoes and accessories for women of all ages from brands such as Level 99, Kork-ease, Hard Tail and Dr. Scholl’s. The store also sells gift items such as candles and bath salts.

Madison native Jacqui Holmes opened the first Frock Fashions in the Colony Crossing shopping center in 2008. The grand opening of the District at Eastover store also coincided with Frock Fashions’ 10th anniversary. The business has a third location at The Square in Oxford.

“At Frock Fashions, we want everyone to leave feeling confident, empowered and beautiful,” General Manager Trisha Richardson told the Jackson Free Press. “We also offer personal shopping appointments where customers can get one-on-one service to help them coordinate the perfect outfit, whether they’re looking for business or casual clothes, cocktail dresses or even prom dresses.”

Frock Fashions is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit frockfashions.com.

Lemuria Hosts ‘Photos with Paddington’

Jackson bookstore Lemuria Books (Banner Hall, 4465 Interstate 55 N., Suite 202) will host a special “Photos with Paddington” event on Saturday, Dec. 15, in celebration of Christmas.

Families can bring their kids to Lemuria from 10 a.m. to noon take pictures with a life-size Paddington, the titular bear from the long-running children’s book series by author Michael Bond. Customers can also enjoy complimentary hot chocolate and shop for holiday gifts.

The Paddington book series began in 1958 with Bonds’ “A Bear Called Paddington,” which went on to spawn 13 other titles, the most recent being 2014’s “Love from Paddington.” Director Paul King adapted the books into a popular film franchise, with entries in 2014 and 2017, and a third currently in development.


Dustin Cardon, Micah SmithWed, 21 Nov 2018 12:09:01 -0600https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/nov/21/catheads-new-bourbon-frock-fashions-opens-and-lemu/
Angie Thomas' Hometown Celebrates Release of 'The Hate U Give' Moviehttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/oct/11/angie-thomas-hometown-celebrates-release-hate-u-gi/

Angie Thomas, best-selling author of "The Hate U Give," promised not to cry at a private reception honoring her young-adult-novel-turned-movie, which comes out this week in her home state. She said her makeup artist would kill her.

"To know that all of you took time out to come here tonight to celebrate what's happening, and in some ways to celebrate me, I am honored," she said. "This makeup on my face looks good. I'm not going to cry. That's what I said."

Thomas said she wants to continue to be an example of the good that comes out of this state, where she plans to stay.

After the release of her debut novel in 2017, Thomas has been around the world, promoting her work. At an Oct. 10 event celebrating the Jackson native at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and Museum of Mississippi History, she rejoiced in not having to take time in her remarks to clear the air about her home state.

She said she often lists off five things to contest misconceptions about Mississippi: First, the state has indoor plumbing; second, Mississippians wear shoes; third, people do not have to sit on the back of the bus because of the color of their skin anymore; fourth, she has never had to drink from a colored-only water fountain; and fifth, she has never been called the n-word in Mississippi but probably has been via Twitter.

"We have a long way to go, but we've come a long way," Thomas said. "I'm proud to say that Mississippi is hopeful. I'm proud to say I have a lot of faith in this state. I'm proud to say I come from this state. It's going to be my duty to show people that all the assumptions they make about us are wrong."

Mayor Chokwe Antar and Ebony Lumumba, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Well Writers Guild and the Mississippi Book Festival co-sponsored the event, which nearly 400 guests attended. Thomas said she wishes every person who comes to her events could see the crowd gathered there, which represented a mix of races and ages.

Mayor Lumumba congratulated Thomas—the first recipient of the key to the City of Jackson under his administration.

"This is truly an exciting day, not only for Angie, but for this community that loves her very dearly," he said.

The mayor said that wife Ebony, the chair of the English department at Tougaloo College and a doctoral candidate at the University of Mississippi, was the one who introduced him to "The Hate U Give," which began as a senior thesis while Thomas was at Belhaven University.

"When you are abroad and pushing your mission forward, we are celebrating you right here in Jackson, Mississippi," Ebony said. "Angie, that's because you are the culmination of our hope for this space. She is a JPS product. That deserves a round of applause."

Ebony encouraged the room to share the book with young people and added that she was intentional about bringing the first couple's two young girls, Alake and newborn Nubia, to this celebration.

"We brought our young people, our children, tonight because if you're familiar with the concept of T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E, you know what the hate you give does to young people, what it does to future generations," she said, referencing the late rapper Tupac Shakur's renowned tattoo of the acronym: "The Hate U Give Little Infants F*s Everybody." It is also the inspiration behind Thomas' book.

Ebony continued: "I laud you, Angie, for taking on the task of making us responsible for what comes after us—thank you, sister."

Thomas offered a direct message for the youth of Mississippi.

"Specifically to the young people in this room, when you look at me, I hope you see what you can become, but I hope you know that you can do even better," she said. "I hope that I'm a mirror for you to see that you have greatness inside of you right here in Mississippi.

"I hope that 10, 20 years from now, when one of you is standing up here, we won't have to say 'Black Lives Matter'—it'll be understood. I hope that you take that torch and you run with it, and I hope that you show people that Mississippi is a good place."

Thomas' breakout novel is about a 16-year-old girl named Starr who crafts a delicate balance in code-switching between a predominantly white prep school and the inner-city where she lives with her family. She is forced to reckon with those careful boundaries after witnessing a police officer shoot and kill her childhood best friend during a traffic stop after a party.

The book has spent 84 weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list, and the film will come to Mississippi theaters on Friday, Oct. 13. Thomas encourages everyone to go out and support the movie, which she characterized as a love letter to Mississippi.

"I mean, when your cousin comes at you with the flash drive talking about, I've got 'The Hate U Give' for free, you need to tell your cousin that Angie said, 'Nah, we can't do that,'" Thomas said, encouraging laughs from the crowd. "I want them to see that right here in Mississippi, some of the most love and support for this film was born right here."

Email city reporter Ko Bragg at ko@jacksonfreepress.com.

Ko BraggThu, 11 Oct 2018 12:31:47 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/oct/11/angie-thomas-hometown-celebrates-release-hate-u-gi/
Lumumba Honors Writer Laymon, a Jackson Native and Ole Miss Professorhttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/oct/09/lumumba-honors-writer-laymon-jackson-native-and-ol/

Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba continued a trend of honoring homegrown authors when he delivered a proclamation to Jackson native Kiese Laymon for his writing this morning.

Laymon is the Ottilie Schillig Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi. He recently released his memoir, "Heavy: An American Memoir," about "growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi," as his website describes the work. This book joins his expanding collection of works that include critically acclaimed essays and a novel.

"I just would like to express my gratitude for Kiese joining us today," the mayor said at the podium in the council chambers. "I'd like to express my gratitude for his tremendous work. We really don't focus on the tremendous talent that Jackson has given birth to—all of these great literary geniuses—and so I'm happy to have Kiese standing with us because he falls in line with that. This is a homegrown author who has nationally and world-renowned writings that have been recognized."

Laymon told the Jackson Free Press that the honor made him feel overwhelmed, happy and thankful.

"My book is about Jackson, so just the fact that folks from Jackson would appreciate and really love me in anticipation of the book just says everything," Laymon said.

Laymon grew up in Jackson, but left after getting kicked out of Millsaps College when he was 19 years old. He says he came back within the last three years and appreciates being honored, but believes the real credit should go to those Jacksonians who never left.

"I think it's important to honor people who come back, but to really, really, really honor people like my aunt who stayed here and fought and made a way for a lot of people who wouldn't have had a way," Laymon told the Jackson Free Press.

Laymon's aunt, Carolyn Coleman, stood beside him as he received the honor from Lumumba. Coleman is a local pastor whom many council members thanked more profusely than Laymon. She said before the council that she appreciated that God had placed Laymon in her life and allowed him to take his own route "and trust that what was in him was so great that the world would want to see it."

Laymon credits his aunt, along with the other women in his life including his mother and his grandmother, for raising him to believe that "radical art necessitates radical politicians."

"Everywhere I go in this nation, and in this world, everybody is asking me about Jackson and about Antar and about our city," Laymon said in council chambers. "I hope we can continue to artfully, critically assess our City, and I hope we continue to love our own."

Laymon told the Jackson Free Press that he believes Lumumba's leadership and his charge to become the most radical city in the world has given the city more renown that trickles down to the people that live here.

"Now when I talk about Mississippi, they ask about Jackson, and they talk about it as potentially one of the most radical, liberated cities in the country," he told the JFP. "It's a place that I think a lot of people are really proud to be from. We should have always been proud to be from here, but I think the leadership now makes us doubly proud."

Email city reporter Ko Bragg at ko@jacksonfreepress.com.

Ko BraggTue, 09 Oct 2018 12:57:14 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/oct/09/lumumba-honors-writer-laymon-jackson-native-and-ol/
Cindy Wilsonhttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/oct/04/cindy-wilson/

Cindy Wilson never planned on being an author, but she had always planned on telling her story. A Jackson couple adopted her as a baby from her birthplace of Seoul, South Korea, in 1975, and she grew up in Mississippi as the child of an African American family.

While she is sure that other people have grown up in similar family situations, Wilson, who now lives in Atlanta, says that she has yet to meet anyone else with the same story. Throughout her life, friends and colleagues would tell her that she should write a book or share her experiences in some fashion. She says it was thinking about the world her young niece, Alexandria, will live in that inspired her to finally take the next step.

"It's always been in the back of my mind," Wilson says. "But just seeing things the way they are now, with everything being so divisive when it comes to politics and race and culture and identity, I just felt like now was the right time. And so I started writing the book last year, which was very (much the) intent with what I was writing and ensuring it made an impact based on what was going now, the climate we live in in today's world."

On Aug. 8, Wilson released her memoir, "Too Much Soul: The Journey of an Asian Southern Belle" (Too Much Soul LLC, 2018, $19.99), which sheds light not only on her youth in Jackson and her personal life, but also on her current search for a way to connect with her multifaceted cultural heritage.

In the book, she discusses the "mixtape" of her life. On one side is an African American culture that she is linked to and yet is separate from due to her skin color. On the other is an Asian culture that she grew up separate from and yet is still part of.

Rather than steering away from that conflict, Wilson decided to include quotes from black and Asian friends, revealing some earnest and frank discussions of topics such as racism, assimilation and privilege. In particular, Wilson says she sought out the perspective of her Asian friends who were raised in that culture and are more connected to their heritage.

"We would have these discussions about people's perception of me as an Asian woman and my experiences, which are going to a little different from theirs," she says. "So there were some commonalities, but then there were some things they pointed out as far as being a 'model minority' and being associated with some positive stereotypes, which is true, and I just never looked at it that way.

"Growing up and being Asian, not that many people in Jackson were Asian, and I just looked at it like being different was not a good thing because I always got picked on for looking different. My experience was a little different from theirs in that (way), but then, they would bring up certain things about just the culture and the heritage of it, and I could definitely see how it would be true, based on their experiences, their perspective and just stepping outside of myself to see their viewpoint."

In the months since writing "Too Much Soul," Wilson says that she has started exploring that aspect of herself. She recently visited Seoul, staying for about eight days in the city and learning more about her birthplace.

"The culture and the heritage in Korea is definitely everywhere, so when you leave, you truly have a sense of what the culture is," she says. "It's in the palaces. It's in the statues. The food is everywhere, and it's very specific to their culture, so you definitely get a sense of that."

Wilson says that she did not necessarily feel a belonging in South Korea, especially given her outgoing nature, which many Korean natives that she interacted did not share. However, the trip did deepen her desire to learn more about this part of herself.

While her family, her racial identity and her sense of self may not be the same as many of her readers, Wilson says many people have told her that they connected with "Too Much Soul" simply as a story about being different. She also hopes that her memoir will help readers begin to reconcile the biases and prejudices they experience, as well as their feelings toward those around them.

"I really hope that it helps to open minds to not only take a look at the actions of other people but also the actions and the way that you think toward other individuals and what role you play in it," she says. "At the end of the day, even though I talk about culture, race, identity and a lot of different things in the book, the overall theme is humanity and being able to meet people where they are.

"... Sometimes, people are where they are because of their life experiences, but (it's about) not shaming them or making them feel bad for thinking the way they think, but really trying to understand and then also, in a sense, educating them and letting them know how their thoughts and actions hurt you or can hurt other people."

Cindy Wilson signs copies of "Too Much Soul: The Journey of an Asian Southern Belle" at Churchill Smoke Shoppe (1198 Lakeland Drive) on Oct. 6 from 3-7 p.m., and the Jackson State University bookstore (1400 J.R. Lynch St.) on Oct. 8 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, visit toomuchsoul.com.

Micah SmithThu, 04 Oct 2018 12:06:09 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/oct/04/cindy-wilson/
Dawn Dugle: Telling the ‘BRAVO!’ Storyhttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/sep/05/telling-bravo-story/

During a Friday night dinner rush at BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar in November 2017, the restaurant was a madhouse. Amid the chaos was local author Dawn Dugle, observing its inner workings for her book, "The BRAVO! Way: Building a Southern Restaurant Dynasty."

Dugle, the chief executive officer of Dugle Media, is a Mississippian by choice—twice. Her company, Dugle Media, which she started in 2015, seeks to help local entrepreneurs tell their stories. Recently, she got to tell one close to home: the story of Jeff Good and Dan Blumenthal, and their business, Mangia Bene (Sal & Mookie's New York Pizza & Ice Cream Joint, BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar and Broad Street Baking Company) in "The BRAVO! Way: Being a Southern Restaurant Dynasty." She is also the creative director at Telesouth, the parent company of Supertalk Mississippi.

How would you describe what you do?

Dugle Media is a company that trains businesses on how to tell their story. I travel the country teaching storytelling for businesses and nonprofits.

Why did you choose Mississippi?

I was recruited to come to Jackson to work at WAPT, and I was the assistant news director there, and got promoted and sent (to Arkansas). But, you know, there's always a lot of talk about your people. Most of the time that refers to your family. For me, my people have become my friends and the people that have welcomed me to the state. I felt like I found my tribe here.

Why do you think people in Mississippi, Jackson especially, need help telling these stories?

I think it's important to Mississippi, in particular, because we have been last on all the good lists and top on all the bad lists. There's this tendency to look at the negatives and wallow in that, but until we start celebrating what's really going well and trying to use that as a foundation to build upon, we're never going to get out of last place.

We're never going to get the rest of this country to take us seriously. They don't realize it's just like any other city, except maybe people are a little kinder to their neighbors. Marshall Ramsey has a great quote about how people show up with chainsaws and casseroles after a disaster, and I think that if we can find more of those stories to celebrate, we can build on that as a state.

Tell me about your book.

"The BRAVO! Way" came about through (observing the work of) Jeff Good and Dan Blumenthal, the owners and founders of BRAVO!, Broad Street and Sal & Mookie's. I noticed something when I would go into their restaurants, and it's the amazing customer service. When I talked to Jeff, he said it's really quite simple. You empower your employees to do a good job and to make it right. If you're a server, it might be your 20th transaction of the day, but to that customer, it's their first. Bringing that brand-new experience to the table every time is so important.

But the story is about (the restaurant), and how it was quite revolutionary 25 years ago when they were founding it. No bank would give these guys money, because they'd never run a restaurant before. Nobody had ever heard of the (different) food they wanted to serve like polenta and risotto. ... It's really about what does it take to be successful in that, and the drive and persistence you have to have every single day, and a lot of people don't realize just how hard they worked behind the scenes. For five years, Jeff and Dan worked at that restaurant every day. It's an amazing story whether you're a fan of the restaurant, a restaurateur or just a regular person.

What was your writing process like?

Well, thank God Jeff Good is a hoarder. He has a closet that is chock-full of 25 years of stuff. He never throws away a memo, and he had all of the documents for the business plan. I went through all of that and did five months of interviews. Once I got through all of that stuff I knew where the book was going. I just had to really sit down and be intense and write every single day. Every single day. The month of April was a blur because I didn't go anywhere except work or home. This was what was important, so I devoted the time to  get it done.

What has been your favorite part of this whole experience?

Jeff and Dan are two of my favorite people, and being able to really tell the world their story is really exciting for me. They were great help and gave me all access.

What do you want people to take away from your book?

Well, I'd like them to take away just what it takes to make something like that successful. And the other thing, there's a lot of conversation in there. ... [R]eally getting a sense of who they are as people and what drives them, I think, is gonna be a real eye opener for people who may not know them very well. I'm excited to share that with the world, because they're amazing people, and I just want the world to see how amazing they are.

"The BRAVO! Way: Building a Southern Restaurant Dynasty" (Sartoris Literary Group, November 2018, $9.95) eBook is available for pre-order on Amazon. The book will come out in digital and print formats on Nov. 1. For more information, visit dawn dugle.com or find the page on Facebook.

Jenna GibsonWed, 05 Sep 2018 11:11:20 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/sep/05/telling-bravo-story/
Coffee and Prosehttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/sep/05/coffee-and-prose/

A building at the corner of West Street and Millsaps Avenue sits seemingly undisturbed, appearing like just another vacant one in midtown Jackson.

However, there's more than immediately meets the eye at the building, now dubbed The Monastery.

In mid-August, the inside was being demolished to make way for something new: the coffee-shop-bookstore combination Coffee Prose, slated to open in winter 2018 or early 2019

Co-owner Emily Pote long had a dream of owning her own bookstore. She has been in the Jackson area since age 10. She attended Mississippi College, where she received a bachelor's degree in English in 2004, later getting an MBA from the University of Mississippi in 2017.

Pote was the children's manager at Lemuria Books from October 2009 to August 2014, and the marketing coordinator for chef Tom Ramsey's pop-up dinner series staege. She also worked as the program administrator at the University of Mississippi Medical Center's The MIND Center and was programs coordinator for the 2017 Mississippi Book Festival.

"I've been in books for a long time," she says. However, she did not want to sell new books.

"One of the things I love when I travel is I always search out the used bookstore because those books have stories," Pote says. "New bookstores are going to change who carries what and everything, but you're bound by what's in print. A used bookstore is not."

When the group undertaking the project, including her business partner and The Monastery owner Rucker Culpepper; his father David Culpepper, the chairman of Millsaps' ELSEWorks program; and Millsaps professor Michael Pickard approached Pote about being involved in the bookstore, she jumped at the chance.

With her background in the business side of bookstores, Pote knew that they would need to sell more than books.

"When they came to me with this idea, I knew books couldn't just be the sole thing, but I thought it should be a very important thing," she says. "We started looking at other things. Coffee seemed like a really smart way to go, especially being right by Millsaps. And while Fondren has two (coffee shops), midtown doesn't have any. It just seemed like a good fit."

Now, they plan to have a drive-through for coffee, craft beer, wine, sweets, books and more.

"I'm really hoping (this will) be a place where the community wants to come and hang out and stay," she says. "... (Midtown) does a lot of artistic things really well, but there's nowhere to just go and hang out."

Pote hopes that the business' location on the edge of the neighborhood will get people used to going to midtown, and essentially make going a habit. "Get people used to coming there, and they'll go to more things in midtown," she says.

In addition to Coffee Prose, The Monastery will have at least four loft apartments upon completion. After demolition in mid-August, developers started working on the build-out.

Pote says they will begin putting in equipment for the retail space after plumbing and electrical are done.

Coffee Prose and The Monastery will showcase what midtown has to offer, such as beer from Lucky Town Brewing Company, fermented products from Sweet & Sauer, products from Mississippi Cold Drip Coffee & Tea Company, food from FEAST, and art from businesses such as AND Gallery and Pearl River Glass Studio.

"We're just really happy to be part of that story and part of that growth," Pote says of her new business.

For more information, find Coffee Prose (1619 N. West St.) on Facebook or visit coffeeprose.com.

Amber HelselWed, 05 Sep 2018 09:58:20 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/sep/05/coffee-and-prose/
Jesmyn Wardhttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/aug/21/jesmyn-ward/

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward told a home-state audience in Mississippi on Saturday that she's working on two books.

One is a New Orleans-based story about the slave trade. The other is a young adult novel about an African-American girl with supernatural powers.

Ward and another acclaimed author, Salman Rushdie, attracted large audiences at the fourth Mississippi Book Festival. During sessions inside the state Capitol and at a church nearby, dozens of authors spoke on a wide range of topics, including food, sports, politics and civil rights history.

Ward returned home years ago to live and write in the small community of DeLisle (deh-LILL) on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where her family has had roots for generations. The two novels for which she won the National Book Award, "Salvage the Bones" in 2011 and "Sing, Unburied, Sing" in 2017, are set among the bayous and sturdy live oaks of the region.

"Sing, Unburied, Sing," is centered on a family's odyssey to pick up a relative from prison. In writing the novel, Ward said she did research and learned that, decades ago, boys as young as 12 or 13 years old were sent to the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman for minor offenses.

"The pain that they had suffered had basically been erased," she said.

She said a "school-to-prison pipeline" echoes that situation today.

Ward teaches creative writing at Tulane University in New Orleans. She said she came upon the idea of writing about the slave trade while driving and listening to a public radio report about the city's tricentennial. An historian said there were once dozens of "slave pens" in New Orleans where black people were held until being sold.

"I felt like all the misery that the enslaved people had endured ... that had all been erased in some way," Ward said. "And so I thought, 'I have to write something about this.'"

Rushdie, born in India and educated in England, won the 1981 Man Booker Prize for his novel "Midnight's Children."

Rushdie recalled once having lunch in London with writer Eudora Welty, who invited him to visit her in at her home in Jackson, Mississippi. She died in 2001, but Rushdie started Saturday by saying, lightheartedly: "Here I am, Eudora."

A collection of Welty's autobiographical work was once published as "One Writer's Beginnings." Rushdie, who was brought to the book festival by the Eudora Welty Foundation, spoke about his own beginning as a writer.

Before publishing a novel, Rushdie worked for a London advertising agency, writing commercials for cat food and cigarettes. He said he has four unpublished texts from his early years as a serious writer.

"I am now immensely grateful that those texts did not get published," Rushdie said. "They really were awful."

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 12:35:23 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/aug/21/jesmyn-ward/
Mississippi’s Giant Literary Partyhttps://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/jul/25/mississippis-giant-literary-party/

This year's fourth annual Mississippi Book Festival is bringing more authors and books to children by reaching past the Jackson area. This year's event will expand from the Mississippi State Capitol and Galloway United Methodist Church (305 N. Congress St.) to schools on the coast.

"Each year, our goal was to put more authors in schools on our dime to visit with children and to really simply just encourage their love of reading," says Holly Lange, a festival co-founder and its executive director.

The festival will have kick-off readings leading up to the main event, which is Saturday, Aug. 18. On Thursday, Aug. 16, a handful of children's authors will go to schools on Mississippi's coast and read their books to students.

On Friday, Aug. 17, the festival will host two authors at Galloway. There, authors Charles Waters and Irene Latham will read, "Can I Touch Your Hair?"—a book of dialogue poems between two children—one black and the other white, to fifth graders from Jackson Public Schools. After the reading, each student will receive a copy of the book.

Lange says this form of outreach has been a long-sought-after goal for the festival.

"[W]hen you hand a child a book, and you see their face light up, and you tell them that is their own personal copy of the book, they are  so happy," she says.

Data from 2017 shows that nearly $300,000 was raised for the event through contributions. Lange says this is quite the feat for one of the last independent book festivals in the country. These contributions help fund not just the festival, but these kick-off readings, too, Lange says. She believes experiences like this will encourage a life-long love of reading and literature, and this will make the largest impact on the state's literacy rates.

"We are not going to sit here and throw (literacy) percentages that we hope to improve and move the needle on the literacy rate in Mississippi," she says. "All we want to do is make kids excited to read and to continue their love of reading because that will then in turn affect the rest of their life, and they will ... move the marker themselves."

The Festival's deputy director, Kristen Guinn, says that while the festival makes an effort to reach children, the event's purpose is to serve the interests of every reader.

With hopes of reaching a diverse audience, Guinn says the festival will host more than 160 authors on more than 40 panels, each contributing to a wide variety of genres, including lifestyle, sports and more.

"We want to be reflective of a lot of different kinds of people with a lot of different kinds of interests, and I think that is not an easy thing to do, but I think ... in particular this year, they have done a really good job," Guinn says.

She is married to writer and Belhaven University associate professor of creative writing, Matthew Guinn.

Panels will be in the Capitol and at Galloway, which has ties in Mississippi's literature, as this is the church Eudora Welty attended, Guinn says.

Outside of those events, participants will have the opportunity to meet other writers on "Author's Alley," a large tent in front of the Capitol.

Scott Naugle, owner of Pass Christian Books on the coast, has been involved with the festival from the beginning and serves on the  board of directors.

"It's another source of pride in our literary community within Mississippi, and another opportunity to put us in a positive way on the map," he says. "... It encourages attendees to purchase real books and interact with the authors. And then take away a tangible, visible object—not only in reference to meeting the author, i.e. the book, but it encourages them to buy  the physical books."

Guinn says that, moving forward, the festival's goal is to host more kick-off readings in the northern part of the state, in addition to the coast, before convening book lovers at the capitol. She says the event is for the entirety of Mississippi, not just Jackson.

"I think that the book festival is one of those things that unites us all in a way that is so tangible and so positive and so fruitful," Guinn says.

This year's Mississippi Book Festival is Saturday, Aug. 18, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Mississippi State Capitol (400 High St.) and Galloway United Methodist Church (305 N. Congress St.), and is free and open to the public. There will be food trucks, music, activities for kids and more. The festival will host writers such as Jon Meacham, Jesmyn Ward and more.

For more information or to see this year's Mississippi Book Festival schedule, visit msbookfestival.com.

Kristina DomitrovichWed, 25 Jul 2018 12:02:31 -0500https://jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/jul/25/mississippis-giant-literary-party/