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Mississippi Writer News Archive:

1997

Headlines:

	Kermit has new home in Leland (March 1997)
	First black Ole Miss graduate donates papers to library (March 24, 1997)
	State Of the Heart Journalism (May 16, 1997)
	Ban of black man's memoir a 'tragedy' (May 17, 1997)
	'Lost' Tennessee Williams play to be staged in U.K. (June 10, 1997)
	Larry Brown is first two-time winner of Southern Book Award for fiction (September 3, 1997)
	William Faulkner's 100th birthday celebrated in Oxford, around the world (September 25, 1997)
	William Ferris unanimously confirmed to head NEH (November 1997)

Kermit has new home in Leland

Mississippi Tourism News (Added 24 March 1997)

Kermit the Frog took up permanent residence on a piece of driftwood beside an epoxy pond at the Leland, Mississippi Chamber of Commerce thanks to Jane Nebel Henson, widow of Muppets' creator Jim Henson. The tableau with the banjo-strumming Kermit sits in a showcase near a three-sided montage of photographs from Henson's career.

First black Ole Miss graduate donates papers to library
The Daily Mississippian, 24 March 1997

James Meredith and Ole Miss Vice Chancellor of Marketing Ed Meek.

James Meredith, the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi in Oxford in 1962, donated his personal papers to the J.D. Williams Library at the university on March 21, 1997. The James H. Meredith papers is a collection of more than 250 linear feet of clippings and printed material from Meredith's personal appearances and book manuscripts dating back to 1962.
Go to article

State of the Heart Journalism
For Decades, Bill Minor Has Been 'The Conscience of Mississippi'
The Washington Post, 16 May 1997
W. F. Minor was a journalist at the Emmett Till murder trial in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, in 1955, at which two white men were found not guilty, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, for the murder of Till, a 14-year-old black boy visiting from Chicago who was killed because he dared to whistle at a white woman. Writing for the New Orleans Times-Picayne at the time, Minor reported the sham of a trial objectively. Since then, Minor, who turned 75 on May 17, has continued to write about Mississippi, and recently he became the first recipient of the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

Ban of black man's memoir a 'tragedy'
Author's widow decries effort
The Miami Herald, 17 May 1997
A minister in Jacksonville, Florida, has asked a local school board to ban Richard Wright's 1945 memoir, Black Boy, as inappropriate for high school students. Wright's widow, Ellen Wright, has written a letter to a Florida newspaper calling the attempted ban "an American tragedy."

'Lost' Tennessee Williams play to be staged in U.K.
10 June 1997
A "lost" play by U.S. dramatist Tennessee Williams is to get its world premiere in London next year, the Royal National Theater said Tuesday. The play Not About Nightingales was written in the 1930s when Williams was at the start of a career that made him one of the 20th century's most successful playwrights. It is set in a men's prison and deals partly with homosexual relationships but does not appear in any Williams' collections. It was discovered by British actress Vanessa Redgrave during a search of Williams' papers. London's Royal National Theater said Tuesday it would stage the play in the spring of 1998.

Larry Brown is first two-time winner of Southern Book Award for fiction
Orlando Sentinel, 3 September 1997
Mississippi writer Larry Brown is the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for fiction which is presented by the Southern Book Critics Circle. He won the award for 1997 novel Father and Son. In 1992 he won the award for his novel Joe. Winning the best nonfiction award is another book with a Mississippi subject, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, by John Barry.
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William Faulkner's 100th birthday celebrated in Oxford, around the world
25 September 1997
The 100th birthday of William Faulkner was celebrated in both the town of his birth, New Albany, Mississippi, and his hometown, Oxford, on September 25. In New Albany, a three-day festival celebrated its most famous son, while in Oxford, a controversial bronze statue of Faulkner was unveiled in front of City Hall on the town square, with fellow Mississippi writers Shelby Foote and Willie Morris present for its dedication.
Go to article at the PBS Online NewsHour web site.

William Ferris unanimously confirmed to head NEH
The New York Times, 11 November 1997
University of Mississippi Professor William R. Ferris was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 9 as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He leaves behind the directorship of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. His publications include a number of anthropological studies on southern and African-American art, crafts, and music as well as the massive Encyclopedia of Southern Culture which he helped edit. Nominated by President Bill Clinton to head the agency, he was championed in the Senate by Majority Leader Trent Lott, a fellow Mississippian.

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