News & Events

Kevin Sack is a veteran journalist who has written broadly about national affairs for more than four decades and has shared in three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church, which explores the two hundred–year history of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church … Continued

Dan Simon is the founder and editor-in-chief of Seven Stories Press. Ashland is his debut novel. He lives in New York and New Hampshire. A deeply moving family story unfolding in richly evocative prose during the final decades of the American century, Ashland is a book of metamorphoses—of the dance between permanence and transformation. The story … Continued

Beth Spencer is a senior lecturer in English at the University of Mississippi who specializes in teaching creative writing and literature at the undergraduate level. She mentors graduate and undergraduate students for the English Department and has a passion for connecting students with study abroad and the Southern Literary Festival. Honors include an artist fellowship … Continued

Ira Sukrungruang is the author of five books, including This Jade World; Buddha’s Dog and Other Meditations;Southside Buddhist, an American Book Award winner; and Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy. He is the president of Sweet: A Literary Confection (sweetlit.com) and is the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College.

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