The Oxford Conference for the Book will commence for the 32nd annual celebration of Mississippi’s literary community and cultural legacy today — Tuesday, March 24. Organized and sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the conference will take place at various locations across the University of Mississippi campus and Oxford.
Events will include free lunches, book panels, an authors’ party and the Willie Morris Awards celebration. All events are free to the public except the authors’ party on Wednesday night, which requires a ticket. The conference will conclude on Friday, March 27.
Communications Specialist at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and Assistant Director of the conference Rebecca Cleary said that the conference fosters community engagement.
“It’s one of my favorite events that we put on university-wide and also Oxford-wide,” Cleary said. “It brings together so many people who have the common ground of a love for reading and writing and wanting to be a part of all of those things.”
In addition to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the conference is supported by partnerships through Thacker Mountain Radio, The National Book Foundation, the Center for Civil War Research, the J.D. Williams Library and the Willie Morris Awards for Southern Writing.
Notable university faculty members involved for this year include Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Beth Ann Fennelly, Kathryn Mckee, Beth Spencer, A.H. Jerriod Avant, Annette Trefzer and Ralph Eubanks.
Each year, the conference has evolved to include more local artists and musicians, strengthening its cultural connections. Beginning in 2024, this year is the third time the conference has worked with a native Oxonian artist to create official artwork for the event.
This year’s artwork, which appears on the promotional posters of the conference, is titled “Soybean Field” and was created by Charlie Buckley. Buckley has been a professional artist for 22 years and received a BFA from University of Mississippi and an MFA from Miami University. He spoke of his art style and inspiration in collaboration with the conference.
“I’m a landscape painter for the most part, and I also like to paint these sort of architectural scenes, and I’ve been painting old neon signs for years,” Buckley said. “I started putting them in what I would call their non-native landscapes, usually in a field somewhere. We were going for a retro look and something catching that is also in line with the type of work that I do.”
The majority of the conference’s events occur Thursday and Friday.
Tuesday
The opening event, called “Prologue,” is a launch party and reading of Nezhukumatahil’s new book “Night Owl” at Off Square Books at 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday
Wednesday will feature Janisse Ray, the university’s 2003 writer-in-residence, as she delivers her lecture “Journey in Place” at Nutt Auditorium at 6 p.m.
Following the lecture, the Oxford Conference for the Book will host its Authors’ Party at the Memory House. This is the only event that requires a ticket.
Thursday
A panel discussion titled “The Choctaw in Mississippi” will begin at 9:30 a.m., moderated by Trefzer in conversation with Jay Wesley and Eddie Johnson. Free lunch will be available after the panel at 11 a.m. in the Baxter Room of the J.D. Williams Library.
The National Book Foundation will lead a panel titled “Balancing Acts” at 11:30 a.m. with Sarah Thankam Mathews, Camonghne Felix in conversation with A.H. Jerriod Avant, also in the Baxter Room. Registration is appreciated for both lunch and the panel.
This is the fifth consecutive year that the foundation, which also presents the National Book Award, has participated in Oxford Conference for the Book programming. Senior Manager of Public Programs at the National Book Foundation Natalie Green expressed excitement for the partnership.
“It’s been such a gift to work with the Oxford Conference for the Book,” Green said. “I feel like we have a really shared ethos of making books and reading exciting and accessible to all different kinds of folks and thinking through programs each year that feel complimentary to the existing lineup.”
Later that afternoon, the UM Center for Civil War Research will sponsor the panel “Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid” with Edda Fields-Black in conversation with Robert Colby in the Overby Center at 1 p.m.
Also in the Overby Center, Addie E. Kitchens, Robert Busby and Nadia Alexis discuss “First Books from Mississippi” at 2:30 p.m., moderated by Beth Spencer.
The final Thursday panel, “Flash!: Micro-Memoirs and Flash Writing,” will be held at 4 p.m. with Steve Almond, Ira Sukrungruang and Beth Ann Fennelly at Southside Gallery.
Tom Junod and AJ White will be featured on Thacker Mountain Radio at 6 p.m. Authors from Thursday’s sessions will also sign books at that time.
Friday
Friday opens at 9 a.m. with the Children’s Book Festival at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts with authors of “One Mississippi” Sarah Frances Hardy and Steve Azar for first-graders. At 11 a.m., the children’s festival will continue with author of “The Mystery of Locked Rooms” Lindsay Currie for fifth-graders.
Fennelly and Steven Almond will host a flash-writing workshop and lunch at noon titled “Flash Class: Learn to Write Small while Lunching” at the Oxford Public Library. Lunch is free, but registration is recommended.
Two more panel discussions will take place Friday afternoon. Nicholas Leamann and McKee will engage in a discussion titled “Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries” at Off Square Books at 1:30 p.m.
Michael Reynolds will be in conversation with Dan Simon about independent publishing titled “Book Publishing: Inside and Out” at Off Square Books at 2:45 p.m.
The conference will close Friday night with two final events. At 4 p.m., Ralph Eubanks will moderate the session “The Willie Morris Awards for Southern Writing” with the 2025 winners and authors Susan Gregg Gilmore, Kevin Sack and White.
The closing reception and book signing will take place at 5 p.m. at Off Square Books. The reception is hosted by the Willie Morris Awards for Southern Writing, and the 2026 award winners will be presented. Jeff Colburn, Slade Lewis and Paul Tate will play music.
Susan Nicholas, coordinator of the Willie Morris Awards spoke about fostering and encouraging writers in Mississippi.
“Mississippi’s best natural resources have always been our people,” Green said. “They write about experiences and have imaginations, and there’s something about Mississippi that is bringing all of this good writing into being. It makes those of us who are not great writers but want to support our state stewards to foster good writing by having programs that encourage, reward or engage people.”
Ale Brown, a second-year Southern studies graduate student from San Antonio, attended last year’s conference and plans on attending again this year. She loves the opportunity and ability to interact with published authors.
“I thought it was a really accessible and intimate way to interact with the authors to hear about how and why they wrote their books,” Brown said. “I’m looking forward to more of that.”
Conference Director Jimmy Thomas echoed similar sentiments of accessibility that the conference offers.
“So often we’ve got books we’re reading, and there’s this kind of dissociation from the person who wrote it,” Thomas said. “It’s a fascinating thing to read a book, or read a passage from a book, and then sit in an audience and have that person in the same room talking about it. And afterward, you can meet that person and talk to them and tell them you’ve read their work. To just engage with the author is kind of magical.”
