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Program of the 27th Annual

Eudora Welty Writers' Symposium 

October 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, 2015

The theme for this year's symposium is "''This Very Leap in the Dark': New Beginnings in Southern Letters" which is inspired by Eudora Welty's essay "Words into Fiction" from her collection of essays The Eye of the Story..

The names below are the list of authors for this year, including when available, links to author websites where you can learn a little more about this year's line-up. Don't forget that we will be selling books at Welty Book Table during the symposium.

 The full schedule can be found on our poster.weltyposter2015

Kiese Laymon

author of Long Division and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

11:15 AM on Friday, October 23

Kiese Laymon is a native of Jackson, Mississippi. He has taught at Vassar College and is currently John Grisham Visiting Writer at the University of Mississippi. His first novel, Long Division, is the story of a high school student named Citoyen and involves time travel and a novel within the novel that contains some strikingly familiar characters. The Boston Review calls it “a multilayered, allusion-packed, time-traveling plot… engaging complex questions of race, violence, gender, sexuality, and our relationship to history.” Laymon has also published a collection of essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America.Long Division coverHowToSlowly sm