SPRING/SUMMER 2018
Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Honors Center with Two Awards The Center for the Study of Southern Culture will be well represented at this year’s Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (MIAL) awards banquet in Jackson. For the second time in four years, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters will honor the Center for its work in publishing. At this year’s awards banquet, to be held at the Two Mississippi Museums on Saturday, June 2, MIAL will present Ted Ownby, Charles Reagan Wilson, Ann J. Abadie, Odie Lindsey, and James G. Thomas, Jr. with a Special Achievement Award for their work on the Mississippi Encyclopedia, published in May 2017 by the University Press of Mississippi. MIAL presented the Center with a Special Achievement Award for their work on The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (University of North Carolina Press) in 2014. The Mississippi Encyclopedia has also won an Award of Merit from the Mississippi Historical Society and the Heritage Award from the Mississippi Heritage Trust this year. Also receiving an award at this year’s banquet is John T. Edge, director of the Center’s Southern Foodways Alliance. Edge is the winner of the Nonfiction Award for his recent book, The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South. Edge has written or edited more than a dozen books, including the Foodways
volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. In The Potlikker Papers, he traces how the food of working-class southerners became a pivotal part of American cuisine. The book has been roundly praised by major news outlets, from the New York Times to making NPR’s list of 2017’s Great Reads. The Atlanta JournalConstitution asks, “Is The Potlikker Papers a history of the South by way of food stories, or a story about southern food by way of our history? By the time you come to the end of this rigorous volume, you’ll know that the two are indivisible.” The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters recently announced all of its award winners for works first published, performed, or shown in the year 2017. The award recipients, chosen by out-of-state jurors prominent in their respective fields, will be honored at the MIAL annual awards banquet. In addition to the awards banquet, Fischer Galleries in Jackson will feature the work of winners Jack Spencer and Charlie Buckley on Friday evening from 5:00 to 7:30. MIAL will also offer a tour of Pearl River Glass Studio on Saturday morning from 10:00 to 11:00 and readings and book signings by award winners at Lemuria Bookstore Dot Com Building at 1:30 on Saturday afternoon. continued on page 18