Richard Wright

Willie Morris (1934–1999)

WILLIE MORRIS (1934–1999)

William Weaks “Willie” Morris grew up in Yazoo City, Miss., which he immortalized in his many works of prose. His trademarks were his poetic prose style and his commentaries on the American South, especially the Mississippi Delta. He was a Rhodes Scholar, and in 1967 he became the youngest editor of Harper’s Magazine. As editor of The Texas Observer, he had a penetrating editorial style that gained him admirers and enemies alike. He wrote 19 books in all, among which was his best-selling work North Toward Home, an autobiographical account of his exodus from the South. The work won him the prestigious Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award for non-fiction. He left Harper’s Magazine in 1971, and became writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippi. Morris died in 1999 of a heart attack, and is being rediscovered as one of Mississippi’s great writers. His book, My Dog Skip, was made into a movie in 2000, starring Kevin Bacon, Diane Lane, and Frankie Muniz.
by Stephen Enzweiler

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Tennessee Williams
Ellen Gilchrist
John Grisham
Margaret Walker Alexander
Tennessee Williams
Ellen Gilchrist
John Grisham
Margaret Walker Alexander
Clifton Taubert
Eudora Welty
Richard Wright
Shelby Foote
Clifton Taulbert
Eudora Welty
Richard Wright
Shelby Foote
Jimmy Buffett
Greg Iles
William Faulkner
Jill Conner Browne
Jimmy Buffett
Greg Iles
William Faulkner
Jill Conner Browne
Walker Percy
Willie Morris
Walker Percy
Willie Morris

 

At Home with Morgan Freeman

Y’ALL, June/July 2007, Volume 5, Number 4, page 15

Morgan Freeman challenges anyone who lives in the South who is thinking about leaving Dixie to just go. But in the same breath, he also warns, “Leave, but you’ll be back.” — by Tabatha Hunter

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