W. Ralph Eubanks's Blog

My next book, A Place Like Mississippi, will be released March 16, 2021 by Timber Press, a division of Workman publishing. Here is the publisher's description and a link to the publisher's page about the book:

A palpable connection to the landscapes of Mississippi can be felt in the work of the state’s many lauded writers. This connection to the land runs deep—across onerous lines of class, gender, and race—spanning generations of authors birthed in the Magnolia State. It’s difficult to read Faulkner, Welty, Wright, and Ward and not come away with the very particular sense of place that the state and the greater American South represents in their work.

In A Place Like Mississippi, W. Ralph Eubanks takes readers on a complete tour of the real and imagined landscapes that have inspired generations of authors. Eubanks is a native Mississippian who has spent time in all of the state’s 82 counties, and he knows its writers and its complicated history well. In A Place Like Mississippi, Eubanks honors and explores this landscape, and this history, as he reveals the many ways it has informed the work of some of America’s most treasured authors. Supported by contemporary and historical photography, A Place Like Mississippi is a must-read for fans of Southern literature.


https://www.workman.com/products/a-pl...

On March 20-22, I will be part of the visiting writers' series at the Birmingham Area Consortium for Higher Education (BACHE). BACHE is a partnership among the five four-year colleges and universities in the greater Birmingham area: Birmingham-Southern College, Miles College, Samford University, University of Montevallo, and University of Alabama at Birmingham. Created by the presidents in 1996 to advance academic excellence through collaborative activities and shared resources, BACHE enhances educational opportunities for students and provides services and support to faculty, staff and the community.

The Visiting Writers’ Series is one of the cornerstones of BACHE. Each academic year, the BACHE VWS brings three esteemed authors to give readings at each of the five campuses; the author also answers audience questions, and signs books. Since its inception, it has featured myriad award-winning poets and writers at readings, whose audiences include university students, faculty, and staff as well as lovers of literature from around the region.

Here are the dates, times, and places for my readings: Monday, March 20, 2017: University of Montevallo at 3:30pm, J.A. Brown Room, Carmichael Library; Samford University at 7:00pm, Divinity North Room 302; Tuesday, March 21, 2017: Birmingham Southern College at 11:00am, Norton Theatre; Wednesday, March 22, 2017: Miles College at 10:00am, Pearson Auditorium; University of Alabama at Birmingham at 6:00pm, Hulsey Recital Hall.

Here are two recent articles:

Passing Strange, just out from The Common:

http://www.thecommononline.org/featur...

And, "For Better or for Worse, How Mississippi Remembers Emmett Till" in LitHub:

http://lithub.com/for-better-or-worse...

Governor Phil Bryant declared April to be Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi. Such contemporary secessionism is not merely symbolic. After a period of racially integrated governance from 1980 to 2000, Mississippi has entered a second phase of disenfranchisement—much like the period that followed the two decades of Reconstruction—in which the legislature’s mostly black Democratic minority has been locked out by the entirely white Republican majority.

Read the essay at newyorker.com:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-de...

This summer, as part of a special package on equality in the digital age, WIRED magazine sent me and photographer Tabitha Soren to Mississippi, the American state that ranks last in high-speed household Internet access. Rather than come back with a dry dispatch on the digital divide, I've written a deeply personal examination of what it means to be technologically isolated in today’s America.


http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land...

Tomorrow night on many PBS stations, the documentary "Spies of Mississippi' will have its premier showing.

http://itvs.org/films/spies-of-missis...

I'm honored to be one of the "talking heads" in the documentary, alongside Laurence Guyot, Jerry Mitchell, Bob Moses, and William Winter.

James Meredith's March Against Fear—starting in Memphis, Tenn., and ending in Jackson, Miss.—took place in June 1966, a mere 15 months after Alabama's Selma-to-Montgomery march. While the Selma march possesses iconic status in civil-rights history for the change that came in its aftermath—the 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law not long after—the March Against Fear often seems like a historical footnote. Perhaps that is because it is remembered more for the divisions among its participants than for any concrete accomplishment. The bickering and conflict among the leaders of various civil-rights organizations stand in sharp contrast to the unity and triumph captured by television and newspapers on the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

You can read my full review of "Down to The Crossroads" at the link below.


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/S...

David Plante's "Becoming a Londoner: A Diary" is a fascinating read, but for me it prompted a close re-reading of his Francoeur novels: "The Family," "The Country," and "The Woods." Here is a link to the full review on the Virginia Quarterly Review blog:

http://www.vqronline.org/blog/

Here is a link to my blog post on the Tumblr for the Oxford Conference for the Book. The post summarizes what I will be covering in my opening talk March 21, 2013.

http://oxfordconferenceforthebook.tum...

On March 21, 2013, i will be giving the Opening Talk at the Oxford Conference for the Book. The title of my lecture is “Of Books and Libraries: Why Libraries, Publishing, and Storytelling Still Matter.”
The lecture will be in the Archives and Special Collections, 3rd Floor of J. D. Williams Library, on the campus of the University of Mississippi.