Thank You For Your Service

Elisabeth Scott

Reference Librarian

Our nation celebrated Veterans Day last week, and over the weekend, I read an interesting article about the falling rate of living veterans. When I was a child in 1980, 18% of American adults were veterans. Now? It's 6%. The end of the military draft in 1973 had a huge impact on this number, and the article got me thinking on how prominent veterans and the idea of war were in my youth. Both of my grandfathers served during World War II, along with most of my great-uncles. My dad is a veteran; he served in Thailand. Most of my friends' dads when I was growing up? Also veterans. To me, it felt like everyone was a veteran. It should come as no surprise, then, that many of Mississippi's older generations of authors are also veterans (or at least wrote about them). Let's take a quick look, shall we?

• Shelby Foote was born in 1916 in Greenville. He was the author of a well-known trilogy of nonfiction books on the Civil War, as well as multiple novels. He joined the Mississippi National Guard after college and served in both the Army and the Marines during World War II, but did not see combat. You can read more about his time in service here and here.
  
  
• John Alfred Williams was born in 1925 in Jackson. He was a medical corpsman in the Navy during World War II. Williams has a "reputation as a supremely talented but undervalued writer" and wrote a large variety of work, including prize-winning novels and biographies, during his lifetime.
  
  
• Etheridge Knight was born in 1931 in Corinth. He served several years in the Army, including as a medical technician before and during the Korean War. Physical injuries and psychological trauma suffered during the war led to an opiate addiction and jail time, but Knight used this as a time to pivot toward the arts. While incarcerated, he spent his time reading and reaching out to active poets of the time. His first book of poetry was published as he was released from prison, and he went on to write several more. 
  

Some Mississippi authors enlisted, but life had other plans. Richard Ford joined an ROTC program in college, only to be discharged due to hepatitis. William Faulkner enlisted in the Canadian Royal Air Force, but spent most of his time in quarantine from an influenza pandemic at the time in Toronto. World War I was over before he saw any time overseas, not that you could tell that from the stories he told and the photographs he had made. Faulkner did, however, lend a hand in shaping the young minds of future veterans. In one of his last public appearances before his death, Faulkner visited West Point. He gave a reading from his forthcoming book The Reivers and was a guest lecturer for several literature classes. The tape recordings of that visit have been transcribed and compiled in the book Faulkner at West Point.

Mississippi Center for the Book Announces Creation of New Mississippi Literary Map

The Mississippi Center for the Book, located at the Mississippi Library Commission, is pleased to announce the creation of a new Mississippi Literary Map, funded by a Bicentennial Grant through the Mississippi Humanities Council. Twenty-one Mississippi authors will be represented on the map by a portrait, created by noted Mississippi artist Ginger Williams Cook, known for her illustrative, whimsical portraits. The map will also include many of Mississippi’s most noted writers represented through text. All authors on the map were chosen by a selection committee, and include many prominent as well as often undervalued Mississippi writers. This map is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all Mississippi authors; rather, it is a representative sample of authors from the state who have achieved national attention and awards, such as Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes. The last literary map was created in the mid-90s.

Dr. Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress, will unveil the map at the third annual Mississippi Book Festival on August 19, 2017 at the Mississippi State Capitol. “This being Mississippi’s bicentennial makes it the perfect opportunity to look back and celebrate the state’s literary treasures as well as recognize some overlooked authors,” said Tracy Carr, Director of Mississippi Center for the Book. “It is beyond exciting that Dr. Hayden open the Mississippi Book Festival by unveiling the map,” Carr said. Maps will be available free of charge to the general public at the Mississippi Book Festival.

The Mississippi Center for the Book is the state affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, a national program that promotes books, libraries, literacy, and reading. The Mississippi Center for the Book, housed at the Mississippi Library Commission since 2000, hosts statewide programs such as Letters About Literature, a reading and writing contest for students in grades 4-12; creates programming opportunities for public libraries such as the popular Book Club in a Box program; participates in the Mississippi Book Festival and National Book Festival; and creates special projects, such as Bicentennial Bingo.

The Mississippi Library Commission supports innovative programs and initiatives to strengthen and enhance library services for all Mississippians. The agency is funded by the Mississippi Legislature, with additional funding provided through the Institute of Museum and Library Services under provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), offering leadership in library services, advocacy, and training for library professionals and paraprofessionals.

Talking Book Services Patron Becomes Published Author

by Shellie Zeigler, Talking Book Services

Mississippi Talking Book Services patron Karen Brown has released a moving memoir through Mississippi's Nautilus Publishing Company. Sandpiper: My Journey with Sight and Blindness is about her progression from a slow loss of sight in her early 20s to complete blindness by age 30. Ms. Brown has strong roots here in the Jackson area. She lived in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Louisiana before making her way back to Mississippi for good. She became the director of the Addie McBryde Rehabilitation Center in 2002 and led that organization for seven years.

In her book, Ms. Brown shares the path her life took over the years: from marrying her husband in Germany, to raising their son, to having three different guide dogs, to teaching English in Florida. Karen's book should be categorized as an inspirational autobiography, if only for her strong faith in God and her optimistic attitude that helped guide her through the struggles she faced. Now a patron for 43 years, Ms. Brown stated that one of the first services she received as a visually impaired person was the Talking Book Services at the Mississippi Library Commission. She stated, "Reading has always been such a treasure for me. I never lost that. I started with the record players that the service provided." That service has changed over the years, but we still have the same goal: no one should ever lose the ability to read, regardless of any impairments. Sandpiper is currently being recorded as part of our ongoing effort to make books by Mississippi authors available to our Talking Book Services patrons.

Karen Brown will be giving a reading and book signing tomorrow, Friday, September 9, 2016, at Lemuria Books in Jackson, MS at 5 p.m. Her book can also be purchased at amazon.com.

Happy birthday, Charlaine Harris!

It's our favorite vampire queen's birthday! Happy birthday, Charlaine Harris! You may know her work and not even realize it. Harris is responsible for bringing us all True Blood, y'all. Her novels about the vampire-loving telepathic waitress, Sookie Stackhouse, are the basis for the show. What you may not know is that Harris is a fellow Mississippian! While Sookie lives in small town Louisiana, Harris was born in Tunica, MS and we couldn't be more proud to call her one of our own. Read more about her life on her website here! Harris is perhaps most well known for her Sookie Stackhouse series, but she's the author of roughly 5 other series and several stand-alone novels. Find out more about her novels here.

Join us (and our favorite True Blood short-order cook, Lafayette) in wishing her a happy birthday!

Original image of Harris here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charlaine_Harris.JPG
Lafayette gif here: http://giphy.com/gifs/cheers-toast-true-blood-tqe6TW0g5dxU4