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September 14, 2024 Festival
Official Panelists
Funders
About
What We're About
Who We Are
Most Recent Festival
Participate
Make a Contribution
Be a Funder
Become a Volunteer
Join as an Exhibitor
Suggest a Panelist
Give
2024 Official Panelists
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Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the
New York Times
-bestselling author of
Friday Black
. His work has appeared in
The
...
Kaveh Akbar
Kaveh's poems appear in
The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Best American Poetry,
and elsewhere. He is the...
Allison Alsup
Allison's historically researched debut novel,
Foreign Seed
, was released this June by Keylight Books, an imprint of Turner Publishing. Allison's writing...
Jami Attenberg
Jami has written about food, travel, books, relationships, and urban life for
The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal,
...
Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn
Dr. Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn is an educator, speaker, author, and professional learning facilitator. She is currently Deputy Director, Learning and Engagement at Learning for...
Lee Boudreaux
Lee, Vice President and Executive Editor, joined Doubleday in 2018 and publishes exclusively fiction, seeking out unexpected stories and original voices in novels notable...
Anne Byrn
Anne is a
New York Times
bestselling food writer and author. She writes the weekly newsletter Between the Layers, one of the...
Adam Clay
Adam most recent book is
Circle Back
(Milkweed Editions, 2024). His poems have appeared in
Ploughshares, Denver Quarterly, Tin House, Bennington
...
Eli Cranor
Nationally bestselling, award-winning author Eli Cranor writes from Arkansas where he lives with his wife and kids. His critically acclaimed debut novel,
...
Elizabeth Crook
Elizabeth Crook, a recipient of the Texas Writer Award, is the author of six novels, including
The Night Journal
, which received the...
Kate DiCamillo
Kate is one of America’s most beloved storytellers. She is a former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and a two-time Newbery Medalist....
Jeff Duncan
Jeff Duncan, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, is a sports columnist for the
New Orleans Times-Picayune
and was a member of the team...
Leif Enger
Leif Enger grew up in Osakis, Minnesota, and worked as a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio before writing his bestselling debut novel
Peace
...
Dionne Ford
Dionne is author of the memoir
Go Back and Get It
(Bold Type Books) and co-editor of the anthology
Slavery's Descendants:
...
Steve Gleason
Steve Gleason played eight years for the New Orleans Saints and, in 2011, was diagnosed with ALS. Shortly after his diagnosis, he founded Team Gleason,...
Juliet Grames
Juliet is the author of
The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
, a national and international bestseller, and
The Lost
...
Grace Elizabeth Hale
Grace is the Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Virginia. An award-winning historian and internationally recognized expert on...
Shaun Hamill
Shaun Hamill received his BA in English from the University of Texas at Arlington, and his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His...
Mary Annaïse Heglar
Mary is known for her essays that dissect and interrogate the climate crisis, drawing heavily on her personal experience as a Black woman...
J.L. Holloway
J.L., a native of Prentiss, Mississippi, who started picking cotton at the age of 4, has been an entrepreneur his entire life. Holloway has...
Sebastian Junger
Sebastian is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
Tribe, War, Freedom, A Death in Belmont, Fire, and The Perfect Storm<
...
Joseph Kanon
Joseph Kanon is the Edgar Award-winning author of
Los Alamos
and nine other novels:
The Prodigal Spy, Alibi, Stardust, Istanbul Passage,
...
Rachel Khong
Rachel is the author of
Goodbye, Vitamin
, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, and named a Best Book of the...
Erik Larson
Erik is the author of six national bestsellers:
The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil
...
Claire Lombardo
Claire is the author of
The Most Fun We Ever Had
, which has been optioned for television by Reese Witherspoon. She lives...
Beverly Lowry
Beverly Lowry is the author of six novels and four previous works of nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in
The New Yorker, The
...
Rachel Lyon
Rachel is the author of
Fruit of the Dead
and
Self-Portrait with Boy
, a finalist for the Center for Fiction's...
Jenn Lyons
Twice-nominated Astounding Award finalist Jenn Lyons lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband, her cats and a nearly infinite number of opinions on...
Lee Mandelo
Lee is a writer, critic, and occasional editor whose fields of interest include speculative and queer fiction, especially when the two coincide. His ...
Mesha Maren
Mesha Maren is the author of the novels
Sugar Run, Perpetual West
, and
Shae
(May 2024, Algonquin Books). Her short stories...
Alane Salierno Mason
Alane is an executive editor and vice president at the independent, employee-owned W.W. Norton & Company, where she has worked for 30 years. In...
Priyanka Mattoo
Priyanka is a writer, filmmaker, former talent agent, and a cofounder of Earios, a women-led podcast network. She is a contributor to
...
Kate Medley
Kate is a North Carolina-based visual journalist documenting the American South. Her work focuses on storytelling and environmental portraiture and often explores issues...
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Aimee is the author of the
New York Times
bestselling illustrated collection of nature essays
World of Wonders
, chosen as...
January Gill O'Neil
January is an associate professor at Salem State University and the author of
Glitter Road
(2024),
Rewilding
(2018),
Misery Islands
(2014),...
Ron Rash
Ron is the author of twenty books of poetry and fiction, including the PEN/Faulkner finalist and the New York Times bestselling novel Serena....
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Maurice is the author of the forthcoming historical novel,
The American Daughters
, which will be published in 2024 by One World Random...
Di Rushing
Di grew up in the Mississippi Delta. In 1976, she and her husband established the state's first winery near Merigold, Mississippi. A few years ...
O.O. Sangoyomi
O.O. is a Nigerian American author with a penchant for African mythology and history. During a childhood of constantly moving around within...
Leona Sevick
The Bamboo Wife, published by Trio House Press, is Leona Sevick's second collection of poems. She is the winner of the 2017 Press 53 Poetry ...
Ery Shin
Ery was born in Ames, Iowa in 1986. She was raised in Manhattan for the first decade of her life, then Seoul for the second....
Wesley Shoop
Wesley Shoop received a Ph.D. in tropical medicine and parasitology at LSU where he studied and published nearly a dozen scientific studies on...
Taryn Souders
Taryn's middle grade novels have been named to multiple state award lists, including the Pennsylvania's Young Readers Choice Awards, Georgia's Children's Book Awards,...
Sheila Sundar
Sheila is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Mississippi. Her writing has appeared in
The Virginia Quarterly 
...
Anthony Thaxton
Anthony has won awards as a writer, painter, educator, television director, and filmmaker. Named the 2019 Distinguished Art Alumnus of the Year for Mississippi...
Angie Thomas
Angie is the author of the award-winning, #1
New York Times
bestselling novels
The Hate U Give
,
...
Joseph Earl Thomas
Joseph is a writer from Frankford whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in
VQR, N+1, Gulf Coast, The Offing
, and
...
Natasha Trethewey
Natasha Trethewey served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States (2012-2014). She is the author of five collections of poetry,
...
Boyce Upholt
Boyce is an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in the
Atlantic, National Geographic, Outside, the New Republic
, and
Time
,...
M.O. Walsh
M.O. is the author of the novels
The Big Door Prize
and
My Sunshine Away
, which was a
...
Allen R. Wells
Allen R. Wells is a Jackson, Mississippi. He's a graduate of Tennessee State University in Nashville. As an author, he believes in fostering safe...
Randy Wayne White
Randy Wayne White is the
New York Times
bestselling and award-winning author of the Doc Ford series. In 2011, White was named a...
Diane Williams
Along with Richelle Putnam, Diane coauthored
A Guide to Mississippi Museums
. She is the author of
The Life & Legacy of B
...
Phillip B. Williams
Phillip B. Williams is a Chicago, Illinois native. He is the author of the debut novel
Ours
(Viking 2024), the full-length poetry collections ...
Snowden Wright
Snowden is the author of the novel
American Pop
, a
Wall Street Journal
WSJ+ Book of the Month, selection for Barnes &...
Ben Wynne
A native of Florence, Mississippi, Ben Wynne earned an undergraduate degree from Millsaps College, a master's degree in history from Mississippi College, and...