Willie Morris and the Southern Memoir

Willie Morris (1934-1999) was Mississippi’s outspokenly devoted native son. Raised in Yazoo City and living for an extended time in Oxford and in Jackson, as well as in Texas, Washington, D.C. and New York, Morris represented Mississippi as a kind of unofficial ambassador. His own career was very distinguished: after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, he won a Rhodes scholarship which allowed him to study history at Oxford University. He became the youngest editor-in-chief of Harper’s Magazine and won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award for his memoir North Toward Home. His perhaps best know for Good Old Boy, a remembrance of his Delta youth, and My Dog Skip, a tale about his childhood pet, both of which were adapted into films. He tirelessly advocated for Mississippi’s unique history and culture, as seen particularly in his last work, My Mississippi, published just after his death in 1999. In it, he wonders at the reasons our state has produced such impressive writers: “It has been remarked that Mississippi has produced so many fine writers because the state is such a complicated place that much interpretation is required.” This talk explores Willie Morris’ memoirs North Toward Home, Good Old Boy and My Dog Skip and their place in Mississippi’s rich literary tradition.

Speakers Expertise:

Dr. Katherine Cochran studied southern literature at the University of Mississippi and currently teaches courses in southern studies at the University of Southern Mississippi. Cochran knew Willie Morris as a child and brings both firsthand and scholarly experience with his work to this presentation.