NEWS

From Oxford Magazine, Oxford, Mississippi Reinventing Willie Aug 16, 2022 | Columns, Features, Jim Dees By: Jim Dees Reinventing Willie Oxford is known as a retirement destination but it’s also a place for those of any age to rebound from a crisis, tie up messy loose ends or reinvent yourself. Perhaps no one practiced this art better than the… Continue reading On the Reinvention of Willie Morris

Love, Daddy: Letters from My Father examines the complexities of father-and-son relationships through letters and photographs. Willie Morris wrote scores of letters to his only son, David Rae Morris, from the mid-1970s until Willie’s death in 1999. From David Rae’s perspective, his father was often emotionally disconnected and lived a peculiar lifestyle, often staying out carousing… Continue reading David Rae Morris reflects on father Willie in new book with forward by Kaylie Jones

The 31th Annual James Jones First Novel Fellowship has awarded first place and $10,000 to Beenish Ahmed of Detroit, MI. for her novel titled Every Song an Elegy. Ahmed was selected from 584 entries in the competition co-sponsored by the James Jones Literary Society and the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes… Continue reading 2022 James Jones Fellow named

Congratulations to Erin Kate Ryan, the 2017 winner of the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, on the publication of her debut novel, Quantum Girl Theory (Random House 2022). The novel has been named by CrimeReads as "One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022." The novel pivots on Mary Garrett, who has a gift for… Continue reading Debut novel from 2017 JJ Fellow

MARSHALL, Ill.—One final gift of $20,000 from the estate of noted author and playwright Jon Shirota, one of the last living members of the Lowney Handy Writers Colony (co-founded by From Here to Eternity author James Jones), has put a fitting exclamation mark at the end of his years of support for a creative writing… Continue reading Generous estate gift from writers’ colony member