Write On, Mississippi!

In this episode, author Addie E. Citchens joins the podcast to talk about her debut novel, Dominion. Exploring the ideas, inspirations, and personal experiences that shaped the work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen to Joesph Earl Thomas talk with host Matt Sawyer about his award-winning book, God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer. Joseph Earl Thomas - Joseph Earl Thomas is an American writer and educator known for his memoir "Sink", which was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. His work has appeared in publications such as The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Dilettante Army, and The New York Times Book Review.Matt Sawyer: Matt is an educator, podcaster, writer, and hip-hop artist based in Macon County, North Carolina. He is the creator of the Story Made Project, an exploration for and of stories that make a difference in our world.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join Crystal Wilkinson as she sits with Ebony Lumumba to discuss her national best-selling book, Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks. Crystal Wilkinson: Crystal Wilkinson is an acclaimed American author, poet, and educator known for her poignant and lyrical explorations of identity, family, and rural Black life in Appalachia.Host Ebony Lumumba: Ebony Lumumba is an English professor specializing in African American and Diasporic literature. Her work intersects education, activism, and literature, making her a vital voice in discussions on contemporary race, culture, and social progress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join Kate Medley as she talks with Matt Sawyer about her coffee-table book of photographs, Thank You Please Come Again. The book has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, among others. It was named a Best Book of 2024 by NPR and won the 2024 Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters prize.Kate Medley: Kate Medley is a North Carolina-based visual journalist documenting the American South. Born and raised in Mississippi Kate has investigated Civil Rights-era cold cases, covered the devastating impacts of Hurricane Katrina, and chased down hot tamales and Koolicles in the Mississippi Delta.HostMatt Sawyer: Matt is an educator, podcaster, writer, and hip-hop artist based in Macon County, North Carolina. He is the creator of the Story Made Project, an exploration for and of stories that make a difference in our world.    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Writer, educator, musician, and University of Mississippi MFA graduate from Brooklyn, NY, delves into his debut novel We Are a Haunting.Tyriek White: Tyriek Rashawn White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, NY. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Literary Foundation, which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora. He has received fellowships from Callaloo Writing Workshop, New York State Writers Institute, and Key West Writers' Workshop, among other honors. He holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Mississippi.HostMatt Sawyer: Matt is an educator, podcaster, writer, and hip-hop artist based in Macon County, North Carolina. He is the creator of the Story Made Project, an exploration for and of stories that make a difference in our world.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle discusses her debut novel, Even As We Breath, with her friend and fellow North Carolinian, Matt Sawyer. The book made Clapsaddle the first member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians the first member to publish a novel.Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and resides in Qualla, NC with her husband, Evan and sons Ross and Charlie. She holds degrees from Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Her debut novel, Even As We Breathe, was released by the University Press of Kentucky in 2020, a finalist for the Weatherford Award and named one of NPR's Best Books of 2020. In 2021, it received the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. Her first novel manuscript, Going to Water is winner of the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium (2012) and a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction (2014). Clapsaddle's work has appeared in Yes! Magazine, Lit Hub, Smoky Mountain Living Magazine, South Writ Large, Our State Magazine and The Atlantic. After serving as executive director of the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, Annette returned to teaching at Swain County High School for over a dozen years. She is the former co-editor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies and serves on the Board of Directors for the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and is the President of the Board of Trustees for the North Carolina Writers Network. Clapsaddle established Bird Words, LLC in 2022 and works as an independent contractor and consultant.HostMatt Sawyer: Matt is an educator, podcaster, writer, and hip-hop artist based in Macon County, North Carolina. He is the creator of the Story Made Project, an exploration for and of stories that make a difference in our world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join our guest host, Matt Sawyer, creator of the Story Made Project podcast, as he chats with one of America's favorite humorists, Harrison Scott Key, about his newest memoir, How to Stay Married: The Craziest Love Story Ever Told. Hear how Harrison balances humor with gut-wrenching honesty and self-examination.Harrison Scott Key: Harrison Scott Key is the author of three books, including his newest book, How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told, as well as The World's Largest Man (winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor) and Congratulations, Who Are You Again?, the inspiration for his popular TEDx talk, "The Funny Thing About the American Dream," featured at TED.com. He is executive dean at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia.HostMatt Sawyer: Matt is an educator, podcaster, writer, and hip-hop artist based in Macon County, North Carolina. He is the creator of the Story Made Project, an exploration for and of stories that make a difference in our world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join book festival board member Chris Goodwin as he chats with Rinker Buck about his latest nonfiction triumph, Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure. Buck gives Goodwin the nuts and bolts of building and maneuvering a historic flatboat down the Mississippi to New Orleans.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Olivia Clare Friedman sits down with Sarah Story to discuss her award-winning debut novel, Here Lies. Listen in as they discuss the book, which explores mourning, memory, and motherhood in a future Louisiana ravaged by climate change. Find hope in the beautifully told tale of grief and loss made bearable by the unexpected creation of a found family.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CALLING ALL TRUE CRIME LOVERS! Mississippi Delta native and author Beverly Lowry discusses her newest nonfiction work centered on a murder that rocked her Delta community when she was a child. Through rigorous research, one-on-one interviews, and her childhood recollections, Lowry sheds light on a decades-old murder case shrouded in mystery and injustice since that fateful, bloody day.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sit back, relax, and listen as Antoine Wilson discusses Mouth to Mouth, his fresh new novel with Ellen Daniels of the Mississippi Book Festival.Antoine Wilson is the author of the novels Panorama City and The Interloper. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, StoryQuarterly, Best New American Voices, and The Los Angeles Times, among other publications, and he is a contributing editor of A Public Space. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and recipient of a Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin, he lives in Los Angeles. His website is: AntoineWilson.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Period photographs of pivotal moments, first-person stories from history, and the trail of Black America’s fight for freedom and equality present a vivid look at the movement that transformed America.Panelists:DEBORAH D. DOUGLAS is the Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at DePauw University and a senior leader with The OpEd Project, leading thought leadership fellowships and programs that include the University of Texas at Austin, Yale University, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, Urgent Action Fund in South Africa and Kenya, and the McCormick Foundation-supported Youth Narrating Our World (YNOW). While teaching at her alma mater, Northwestern University's Medill School, she spearheaded a graduate investigative journalism capstone on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and taught best practices in Karachi, Pakistan. She is an award-winning journalist, including the 2019 Studs Terkel award, and founding managing editor of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Douglas is author of "Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler's Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement" (Moon Travel, 2021) and is among 90 contributors to "Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019," edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (Random House/One World).A native of Holly Springs, Mississippi, Roy is the Executive Director and one of the founders of the Hill Country Project . He was active as a high school student in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and then as a general organizer. Roy earned his Bachelor's degree in Sociology at Brandeis University in 1970. Continuing his education at Brandeis, he went on to earn a Masters and later a Doctorate in Political Science in 1978. He has also pursued additional studies at Jackson State, Duke, Carnegie-Mellon, Michigan and Harvard Universities.He has a wife, Rubye and one daughter, Aisha Isoke.   William Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1997-2001), Ferris has written or edited 16 books and created 15 documentary films. He co-edited with Charles Wilson the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His books include: Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues, The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists, and The South in Color: A Visual Journal. His most recent publication Voices of Mississippi received two Grammy Awards for Best Liner Notes and for Best Historical Album. Ferris curated "I Am a Man:" Civil Rights Photographs in the American South-1960-1970, which is on exhibit at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and is accompanied by his latest book "I Am a Man": Civil Rights Photographs in the American South-1960-1970.His honors include the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities, the American Library Association's Dartmouth Medal, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award, and the W.C. Handy Blues Award. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine named him among the Top Ten Professors in the United States. He is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society. Ferris received the B. L. C. Wailes Award, given to a Mississippian who has achieved national recognition in the field of history by the Mississippi Historical Society. In 2017, Ferris received the Mississippi Governor's Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.Moderator :Motivational speaker, historian, and women's activist, Pamela D.C. Junior is a native of Jackson, Mississippi and earned a B.S. in Education with a minor in Special Education from Jackson State University. Pamela is the newly appointed director of the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, Mississippi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.