News & Events

Afton Thomas serves as the associate director for programs at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. In this role, Afton cherishes her time working with the Children’s Book Festival partners to organize the event each year, and she loves the engagement with the Lafayette-Oxford-University community. This will be her eighth year participating in … Continued

James G. Thomas, Jr. is the associate director for publications at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture and, since 2015, director of the Oxford Conference for the Book. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy, a master’s degree in Southern Studies, and a master’s of fine arts in … Continued

Annette Trefzer is a professor of English at the University of Mississippi. She teaches American literature specializing in southern literature and Native American literature. Her book Disturbing Indians: The Archaeology of Southern Fictioncontributes to the emerging field of southern Native studies. She is the coeditor of several volumes of critical essays on William Faulkner. Most … Continued

AJ White is a poet and educator from Georgia. White’s debut poetry collection, Blue Loop, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Chelsea Dingman and published by University of Georgia Press. White has won the Fugue poetry prize and received support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. His poems have been published recently in The Account, Best New Poets, Blackbird, … Continued

Jay Wesley is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and he is director for the Department of Chahta Immi, which consists of the Choctaw Tribal Language Program, the Cultural Affairs Program, the Special Projects/Media Program, and the Chahta Immi Cultural Center. He is the author, with Eddie Johnson, of Choctaw Traditions: Stories … Continued