Noted author, poet, and memoirist Paulette Jiles will present the Bettye Jolly Lecture at the Eudora Welty House and Garden on Thursday, April 11, at 4:30 p.m. in the Camellia Room of the Garden. Her most recent book, Chenneville, a story set in the post-Civil War southwest, is focused on grief, love, and redemption, according to publisher HarperCollins, and has been widely praised in reviews.
The Lecture will be followed by a book-signing with support from Lemuria Books and a reception in the Welty Visitor Center. In the event of inclement weather, the Lecture will be held in the McMullan Lecture Hall of the Selby and Richard McRae Christian Center at Millsaps College.
The event will be introduced by Holmes Adams, chair of the Eudora Welty Foundation Board of Directors. Dr. Michael Pickard, Eudora Welty Chair of Southern Literature at Millsaps College and Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing and Chair of the English Department at Millsaps College, will introduce Jiles. Dr. Suzanne Marrs, Welty biographer and Professor Emerita of English at Millsaps, will lead a discussion with Jiles.
The Bettye Jolly Lecture was established by a book club, which began as a Millsaps College class titled “Eudora Welty and Friends.” The late Bettye Jolly, the guiding light of that class, was a journalist, a staffer to outstanding state and national leaders, and an active community leader.
Jiles visited Jackson in 2017, when she discussed her novel News of the World, a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award, at the Welty Visitor Center. Shown below is Alfreda Spell of Jackson at the book signing with Jiles.
