Mississippi Arts Hour

Larry Morrisey travels to Pontotoc to visit with bluesman Terry “Harmonica” Bean. Bean’s latest record, “Drop Dead on Your Front Door,” has just been released by the Music Maker Foundation in North Carolina. Terry talks about his family roots in the blues, getting started playing in the Delta and his regular work in Europe. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB.  https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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Lauren Rhoades talks with children's book author Allen R. Wells and New York Times-bestselling children's book illustrator Shamar Knight-Justice. Their beautiful new picture book, Danté Plays His Blues, was published earlier this year. Danté Plays His Blues is a tender and heartwarming children's book about a boy affected by housing insecurity who learns the power of expressing his feelings through music. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB.  https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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Kristen Brandt talks to Dr. Annette Trefzer of the University of Mississippi. Annette, a professor and writer based in Oxford, has edited a new book titled 'Faulkner, Welty, Wright: A Mississippi Confluence.' This collection of comparative scholarship examines connections among these three most influential and acclaimed of Mississippi's writers. Some of her past work has included Exposing Mississippi, a critical examination of Welty's photographs, and Faulkner and the Native South. We will discuss Annette's path to compiling this collection and her thoughts on the connections between these literary giants when you tune into this segment of the Mississippi Arts Hour. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB.  https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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Larry Morrisey talks with writer Snowden Wright from Yazoo City. Wright is a native of Meridian and his new book, “The Queen City Detective Agency,” is set there during the 1980s. Wright tells us about his pathway to becoming a writer and his interest in setting a book in his hometown. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB.  https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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Kristen Brandt interviews Julie Whitehead. Julie works a freelance writer with a focus on mental health with, and her forthcoming book titled “Hurricane Baby” will release on August 20. This collection of short stories is based on the author’s experiences, observations and speculations about Hurricane Katrina but is presented through the lens of narrative fiction. They discuss Julie’s path to writing this book as well as her upcoming author event at Lemuria Books. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB.  https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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Lauren Rhoades talks with artist Noah Saterstrom, whose exhibition What Became of Dr. Smith is currently on display at the Mississippi Museum of Art. What Became of Dr. Smith envisions the life of Saterstrom’s great-grandfather, a traveling optometrist who, according to family lore, disappeared in 1924. Through a years-long search in state, local, and private archives, Saterstrom discovered that his great-grandfather spent the final four decades of his life at the Mississippi State Insane Hospital (also known as the “Old Asylum”) in Jackson, and later at the Mississippi State Hospital in nearby Whitfield. Presented as an immersive narrative painting of 183 canvases that together span 122 feet, What Became of Dr. Smith is the visual culmination of the story that emerged one century after it was erased from his family’s record. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB. https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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Revisiting a 2023 conversation between Mississippi Arts Commission Director David Lewis and Meridian Symphony Orchestra Education Director Kayla Fuentes.

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Larry Morrisey visits with Jim Beaugez, a music writer based in Clinton. Beaugez has been writing about Mississippi musicians and culture for the past decade for a number of national publications, including Rolling Stone, Smithsonian Magazine and Garden and Gun. He also produced “My Life in Five Riffs,” an online video series that showcased prominent guitar players demonstrating the songs that helped them to develop as musicians. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB.  https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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Lauren Rhoades talks with author Lawrence Wells, whose memoir, Ghostwriter: Shakespeare, Literary Landmines, and an Eccentric Patron’s Royal Obsession, was just published by the University Press of Mississippi, along with the novel Fair Youth, which he ghostwrote for Gertrude C. Ford. Larry is the director of Yoknapatawpha Press in Oxford, Mississippi, which he established with his late wife, Dean Faulkner Wells. The author of two historical novels, Rommel and the Rebel and Let the Band Play Dixie, Wells’ manuscript Ghostwriter, was awarded the 2014 Faulkner-Wisdom gold medal for narrative non-fiction at the Words and Music Festival in New Orleans. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB. https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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Larry Morrisey visits with writer Boyce Upholt. He writes articles on the natural world for a wide range of publications. Upholt has just published “The Great River,” a book on the history of man’s attempts to control Mississippi River. The book includes looks at the mound builder civilizations who built along the river, through the steamboat era and to today. Upholt examines the damage to the Mississippi from various efforts to control it over the years and its ability to change and adapt around the controls.. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB.  https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast.  

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