Two Mississippi Women Authors

I can’t remember how much I’ve told you about these two Mississippi women authors. Doesn’t matter. I’m saying it again because I want you to know about them.

Ellen Ann Fentress

Ellen Ann Fentress has been a friend since we both showed up to pledge the Jackson Junior League and draped our wooden name tags around our necks. That was a different life, for me and her. Ellen Ann makes this point with literary deftness in The Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning. Her narrative takes us from her childhood in the Mississippi Delta to her years as a newspaper reporter, French teacher, wife, divorcee, mother, and so much more. I love Ellen Ann’s voice, her humor, which slips in almost unnoticed then explodes. And, man, has she racked up the kudos: work in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post. Check out more of her work, including her Admissions Project. There, she was kind enough to run my essay “I Never Saw the System.”

Gerry Wilson

The second of these two Mississippi women authors is Gerry Wilson, who wrote the novel That Pinson Girl. Gerry is new to me, only having met her and her work this year. She is from the red clay hills of North Mississippi, and that geography informs her novel. The novel is that wonderful combination of a specific point in place and time—post WWI— that becomes universal. Plus, a twist at the end. The most fun thing is the excerpt of her reading from the novel on her website. Listen to it, so that as you read her beautiful words, you can imagine Gerry saying them. (Or, better yet, buy the audio version.) Also, check out her Substack and sign up for updates so you can keep up with her career.

Mississippi is graced with a wealth of writers. I’m glad to see these two authors stepping into the leadership and recognition they deserve.