The Oxford Conference for the Book is returning to Oxford and the University of Mississippi campus on March 30, 31, and April 1, 2022, as an in-person event, with special partnerships with the Willie Morris Awards in Southern Writing and the National Book Foundation, the administrators of the National Book Awards.
Scroll to shop a selection of books written by this year's authors & panelists and reserve your signed copies.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2022
5:00 p.m. An OCB Warm-up Event
Sam Pink (The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories), Big Bruiser Dope Boy (Something Gross), with guest musician Thomas Dollbaum
The End of All Music
6:30 p.m. The Future of the South Lecture
Imani Perry, South to America, with Derrick Harriell
Nutt Auditorium
7:30 p.m. Book Conference Authors Party
Co-hosted by the Friends of the Library
Memory House
406 University Ave.
(Advance Ticket Required)
THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2022
9:30 a.m. The Fight for Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer
Kate Clifford Larson, Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, in conversation with Ted Ownby
Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics
11:00 a.m. Welcome Lunch at Archives and Special Collections
Hosted by the Friends of the Library
Archives and Special Collections
J.D. Williams Library
(Lunch is free, but registration appreciated)
11:30 a.m. Mississippi Humanities Council Presents “Reflecting Mississippi”
Ralph Eubanks: A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape, welcome by Jennifer Ford
Archives and Special Collections
J.D. Williams Library
1:00 p.m. Remediating Region: New Media and the US South
Gina Caison, Austin Svedjan, Sherita Johnson, and Margaret T. McGehee, with Katie McKee introducing
Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics
2:30 p.m. National Book Foundation Presents
Robert Jones Jr. (The Prophets) and Jason Mott (Hell of a Book), with Ralph Eubanks moderating
Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics
4:30 p.m. Poetry in the Gallery
Marcus Amaker (The Birth of All Things), Joshua Nguyen (Come Clean), and Marcella Sulak (City of Skypapers), with Beth Ann Fennelly introducing session
Southside Gallery on the Oxford Square
6:00 p.m. Thacker Mountain Radio
Poet Kendra Allen (The Collection Plate: Poems), authors Jason Mott (Hell of a Book) and Nathan Harris (The Sweetness of Water), and musician Thomas Dollbaum
Harrison’s 1810 (1210 Harrison Ave., just off the Square)
FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 2022
10:30 a.m. Square Books Presents: “Each Unhappy Family”: Memoir and Memory
Liz Scheier (Never Simple: A Memoir) and Maud Newton (Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation)
The Old Armory Pavillion (an open-air facility on the corner of Bramlett Blvd. and University Ave.)
12:00 p.m. Poetry Talk and Lunch
Marcella Sulak (City of Skypapers)
Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library
(Lunch is free, but registration appreciated)
1:30 p.m. Writing from the Southwest Review
Sam Pink (The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories), Kendra Allen (The Collection Plate: Poems), and William Boyle (Shoot the Moonlight Out), with Robert Rea moderating
The Old Armory Pavillion (an open-air facility on the corner of Bramlett Blvd. and University Ave.)
2:45 p.m. Reading and Conversation
Raven Leilani (Luster), with introduction by Christy Conner and Q&A with Ser Álida
The Old Armory Pavillion (an open-air facility on the corner of Bramlett Blvd. and University Ave.)
4:00 p.m. The Presentation of the Willie Morris Awards in Southern Writing
Monica Weatherly (“If I Had My Grandmama’s Praise”), introduced by Susan Kinsolving and in conversation with Amber Nichols-Buckley, and Nathan Harris (The Sweetness of Water), introduced by Jonathan Haupt and in conversation with Derrick Harriell
Off Square Books on the Oxford Square
5:15 p.m. A Willie Morris Awards and Oxford Conference for the Book Celebration
Reception and Book Signing
Hosted by the Willie Morris Awards in Southern Writing
Off Square Books on the Oxford Square
WINNER OF THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
She was born the 20th child in a family that had lived in the Mississippi Delta for generations, first as enslaved people and then as sharecroppers. She left school at 12 to pick cotton, as those before her had done, in a world in which white supremacy was an unassailable citadel. She was subjected without her consent to an operation that deprived her of children.
“This is the book all of us Mississippi writers, dead and alive, need to read.
Best Book of the Year
NPR • The Washington Post • Boston Globe • TIME • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Real Simple • Parade • Buzzfeed • Electric Literature • LitHub • BookRiot • PopSugar • Goop • Library Journal • BookBub • KCRW
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***2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER***
***THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER***
Winner of the 2021 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize Finalist, 2022 Chautauqua Prize Finalist, Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing Shortlist, 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Shortlist, 2022 Maya Angelou Book Award Shortlist, 2022 Carnegie Medal Longlist
On writing CITY OF SKYPAPERS: "CITY OF SKYPAPERS was an effort of daily writing in Tel Aviv for a span of about three years during which time I tried to inhabit and reconcile Jewish sacred time (holidays, Shabbat, daily prayer rituals) with private, social, and civil secular time-two wars with their worries and missiles, explosions, and a sense of solidarity, as well, with beloved friends in Ga
“Extraordinary and wide-ranging . . . a literary feat that simultaneously builds and excavates identity.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
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This gripping and darkly funny memoir “is a testament to the undeniable, indestructible love between a mother and a daughter” (Isaac Mizrahi).
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"Masculinity doesn't have to be toxic, but some men choose to put poison on their tongue ..."The Birth Of All Things is an eclectic mix of poems from Marcus Amaker, the first Poet Laureate of Charleston, SC.This personal collection delivers poems about a wide range of topics: life as a new dad, racism in America, Bjork, anxiety, Star Wars, masculinity, pandemics, black mu
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
A deeply wrought and joyful debut poetry collection from an exciting new voice
“Pink is a keen observer of the culture of minimum-wage jobs and low-rent studio apartments that is the reality of life for all those who don't find a cog space in today’s hyper-capitalist economy.” —The Guardian
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An Instant New York Times bestseller / An Oprah’s Book Club Pick
In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, an award-winning “miraculous debut” (Washington Post) about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever
A haunting crime story about the broken characters inhabiting yesterday's Brooklyn, this is the new novel from modern master of neo-noir William Boyle.
An explosive crime drama, Shoot the Moonlight Out evokes a mystical Brooklyn where the sidewalks are cracked, where Virgin Mary statues tilt in fenced front yards, and where smudges of moonlight reflect in pu
Joshua Nguyen's sharp, songlike, and often experimental collection compartmentalizes past trauma—sexual and generational—through the quotidian. Poems aim to confront the speaker's past by physically, and mentally, cleaning up.
(This book cannot be returned.)
"This genre-defying account (novel? narrative poem?) of the troubled love of a young man for an emotionally stunted older one in the bars and apartments of megalopolitan Denver is written with such a spooking purity of line and with such an audaciously stark, grave wisdom that it already feels like a classic of its kind.