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Paul:

I can't think of much that would drag me out of the AC on a hot August day. Well, I mean there is this one event, a giant literary lawn party that's become an attendee and author favorite.

Hey, it's Paul Wolf with a front row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call this podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places and events that make the City With Soul shine. On today's episode, Mississippi Book Festival Director Ellen Daniels talks about the shape of the 2023 festival, her favorite authors and why she says community plays a huge role in this... ninth year, not counting the COVID years, right?

Ellen:

No, it is, because we still had a festival. It was just virtual.

Paul:

Oh, that's right.

Ellen:

Trust me.

Paul:

Yeah.

Ellen:

We felt that here. Certainly didn't have the impact that the in-person ones do, but there was still a whole lot of work. It was basically the first time that I've gotten to attend the festival because I was seated in front of my computer recording those sessions. We were in the Capitol yesterday meeting to talk about a couple things, and I was talking to Steven Barnett with Devane who does all of our sound and audio, and he was like, "I do these things but I don't get to attend them." I was like, "Me either, bud." I was like, "I've been to all the Mississippi Book Festivals, but I've never attended one."

Paul:

I know... when you're behind the scenes of everything, you know a little too much and you don't really get to enjoy, but you know that the people who are attending get to enjoy.

Ellen:

Well, but we do enjoy it because we can see a whole year of work. We get to stand on the mountaintop of the entire year of work that we have done and get to see people enjoying it, so maybe we actually enjoy it more.

Paul:

Oh, I like that. That's a good way to look at it, because you feel like you miss out, but maybe you don't. It's rewarding in and of itself. So it's the ninth annual Mississippi Book Festival. As you look back at the history and how it started and the people who put the effort behind it to begin with, what have you seen change? What have you seen that's grown about the festival?

Ellen:

So, the first festival was in 2015. Now people started dreaming about this festival and planning for the festival two years before that. A group of people sat around a table, John Evans, Steve Yates, Tracy Carr, Jere Nash, who has been our board president this whole time. I would venture to say Mississippi has contributed more to American Letters than any other state per capita for sure. And then they were like, "Well, who's going to run this thing?" One name came to mind, and that was Holly Lang. So we had our first festival. It was just in the state Capitol. Since we've moved to Galloway United Methodist Church. That's part of the festival site as well. John Grisham kicked it off on the Capitol steps and there was 3,700 people there. It was just a leap of faith and it worked. It was mostly local, mostly Mississippi-based authors, but over the years and through the relationships that Holly built with all the publishers in New York City, we have got a more national reach.

We have authors come from all over the country, but not only do we have the reach with authors, we have a more national reach with attendees. Last year, of course, the few days after the festival, we're watching social media to see what people say and what they comment. This is just one thing that I read. This couple had driven from DC overnight because they wanted to be there for the Alice Walker and Kiese Laymon session, and they were like, "This is our first time attending the festival. We will never miss again." And it's just things like, of course, love doing this for the citizens of Mississippi, but love showing out of state people all about Mississippi and just one of the wonderful core things that we have going on here, and that is storytelling.

Paul:

That's true. That is so true. So tell me, how was the reception for last year's book festival for 2022? There was a lot of pent-up demand for people to be back in person again, wasn't there?

Ellen:

Yeah. I mean, it is such a hot day and I just burn a track up between Galloway and the state capitol all day long. I just walk that straight line and just deal with things. I had on what I thought was very comfortable tennis shoes. I have never regained full feeling back in my two big toes. But every time I would make a pass, and I made that pass probably 50 times at least, I would have to stop right there in the middle of the festival site and just take it in. After not being in person for two years and everything that our country has gone through since 2020, to be back in person in 2022, after all of this upheaval and division, it was so heartening to be back in person with all different kinds of people, different ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, political beliefs, everybody gathering together over a shared love of books.

Paul:

Yeah, for sure. Now, I know you're excited about the lineup this year and we probably could go for 20, 30 minutes talking about all the great authors, the panelists, the events and activities surrounding the book festival this year, but who are you excited about? I know last year you called them your rock stars, these authors. Who's your favorite coming this year?

Ellen:

I've done a lot of screaming over emails this year. I will tell you, I had just been picked up from the airport by my husband and daughter. I can't remember where I had been, but I saw Jason Reynolds speaker's agent pop up with an email and it just said, "He's in," and I start screaming in the car. And my daughter, Bebe, who's three, she went, "Dada, mama's loud."

Getting the confirmation from James McBride, who is one of my favorite authors who will be in conversation with Kiese Laymon. They're both alums of Oberlin College. He has a new book coming out on August 8th. It's called The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. Ann Patchett, I mean, she is one of my favorite authors and her new one, Tom Lake, she's coming with that. But to make that even more wonderful, Ann Patchett has an incredible independent bookstore in Nashville called Parnassus Books, and the book buyer has written a debut novel called Do Tell. It's about the height of Hollywood, so they're going to be in conversation together as friends, coworkers, and fellow authors. Of course, we have our beloved Richard Ford coming back with his final installment of the Frank Bascombe stories. I mean the first one, The Sports Writer, he won the Pulitzer for. Going to be in conversation with Holly Lang.

Richard Rousseau, who is another Pulitzer Prize winner, got his Fool Series. There's Somebody's Fool, Everybody's Fool. He's coming for Somebody's Fool this year. We have unbelievable nature and environment panel this year that's going to be in CSPAN. I'm also so excited about Lois Lowry, a superstar in children's literature. I read her all growing up. The number of hours that I spent with Anastasia Krupnik in the Rolling Fork Public Library as a kid is just incalculable. She wrote The Giver, Number the Stars. I mean, she's on every summer reading list, so it's such a joy to bring her here.

Of course, we always have such incredible nonfiction offerings. Simon Winchester, who is a rockstar nonfiction writer. His new book is called Knowing What We Know, and it is all about the transferal of knowledge throughout human history, but he is wildly intelligent, but so approachable and writes it in a way that somebody like I can understand. He's just charming. He's British, he's hilarious, and he's in conversation with the deputy director of the National Gallery of Art, Eric Motley, who is also an author. His book was called Madison Park, which is in Montgomery, Alabama. And from an early age, it was clear that Eric was this really intelligent, incredible young man. He was raised by his grandmother and the entire community, community again, pulled together to pay for him to go to college, and he got his doctorate at St. Andrew's in Scotland. I mean, this is a really remarkable individual.

I think something that's coming through in this conversation, the importance of community, because let me tell you, it takes a village to put this book festival on and everybody pulls together to make it a success. The Capitol, Galloway, Visit Mississippi, the book festival staff, all of the vendors that we work for, the volunteers. The volunteer effort is unbelievable.

Paul:

You just can't do it without the people. That's Ellen Daniels, the executive director of the Mississippi Book Festival. It's coming August 19th to the grounds of the Mississippi State Capitol. Now we'll be there too at the book fest information tent offering recommendations on where to dine and what to do in the City With Soul. Don't forget, I'll post the festival schedule in this episode's show notes.

Soul Sessions is produced by Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Mississippi's Capital City. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Ricky Thigpen, and I'm our managing editor. You want to know more about our mission, our vision, what we do for Jackson and for the state of Mississippi as a whole? You can find that at visitjackson.com.

I'm Paul Wolf and you've been listening to Soul Sessions.

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