One of the University of Mississippi’s and Oxford’s most popular events will take place March 27–29, when poets, novelists, journalists, scholars, and, most importantly, readers, will flock to Oxford to celebrate the Twenty-Sixth Oxford Conference for the Book. The event is always free and open to the public with events taking place on campus, the Lafayette County Courthouse, Square Books, and other venues around town. Visit www.oxfordconferenceforthebook.com for a complete schedule and more information.
Kicking off the conference is Wednesday’s luncheon program, which takes place at the J. D. Williams Library on the University campus. Three program sessions on Wednesday afternoon take place at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, located on the University campus. The day’s final reading by Leanne Shapton takes place at Off Square Books at 5 pm.
Thursday’s sessions take place at the Overby Center. Thacker Mountain Radio will be held at the Lyric Theatre, and the screening of La Frontera and reading from Border Walk will be held at the Powerhouse. Thacker Mountain Radio will feature author Ken Wells with his culinary memoir, Gumbo Life.
Friday’s sessions take place at the Lafayette County Courthouse with a reading by Salvator Scibona, as well as at the Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library, Off Square Books, and an in-store performance by Willy Vlautin and Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster at The End of All Music.
The 2019 Oxford Conference for the Book Children’s Book Festival (CBF) will be held on Friday, March 29, at the Ford Center for Performing Arts.
The first-grade author will be Dan Santat, for his book After the Fall. The fifth-grade author is Sharon Draper, for Out of My Mind. Area first graders will visit with the author at the Ford Center at 9 am, and fifth graders will visit with their author at 10:30 am. There will be a book signing by the authors that afternoon from 3–4 pm at Square Books, Jr.
The goal of the Children’s Book Festival is to give each child a book of his or her own, which they will read along with classmates and their teacher during the school year. The Children’s Book Festival serves more than 1,200 area first-graders and fifth-graders from schools in Lafayette County and Oxford. Committees made up of local school librarians, teachers, and representatives from the Lafayette County Literacy Council (sponsor of the first grade), Junior Auxiliary (sponsor of the fifth grade), and Square Books, Jr. choose the book each year. The Conference then invites those authors to present programs to each grade.
All sessions of the Oxford Conference for the Book are free and open to the public.
