Literature of MISSISSIPPI

1. In 1998, this writer became the first author to have their work published by the Library of America while still alive.
Eudora Welty

2. As one of the best-selling books of the 2000s, the first novel by Kathryn Stockett was adapted into an Academy Award winning film in 2011. Name the novel.
The Help

3. Though he was from Louisiana, this comic genius set his first book, written at only 16 and entitled The Neon Bible, in Mississippi. His most famous work, published posthumously (as was the first), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Name the writer.
John Kennedy Toole

4.  Born in the Mississippi Delta, this writer has written three books in her thirty-year writing career—each intricate, fascinating, and hugely different from one another; the latter won her the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
Donna Tartt

5. This writer is acclaimed for her realistic autobiographical portrayal of life for a young African American before and during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It received the Brotherhood Award from the National Council of Christians and Jews, and the Best Book of the Year Award from the National Library Association.
Anne Moody

6. The personal favorite work of writer Tennessee Williams takes place on the Mississippi Delta.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

7. All but four of William Faulkner’s works take place in this county
Yoknapatawpha County

8. The first book by this award winning children’s novelist was 1975’s Song of the Trees. Mildred D. Taylor

9. Famous for his Frank Bascombe novels, this author was born in Jackson, Mississippi.
Richard Ford

10. Canada Lee portrayed the lead character in the Orson Welles Broadway adaptation of this native Mississippian writer’s most famous fiction novel.  Name the writer.
Richard Wright

11. Though she was one of the leaders of the Chicago Black Renaissance and actually born in Alabama, this poet moved to Mississippi to raise her family, and lived on a street which was named after her.
Margaret Walker

12. After winning the 2011 National Book Award for Salvage the Bones, this writer would cement herself as one of the great 21st century American writers by winning the award again in 2017.
Jesmyn Ward

13. Although he was born in Texas, this novelist and short-story writer was the Director of The Center For Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi and editor of the nationally prominent literary journal Mississippi Review from 1977 to 2010, placing him at the forefront of the contemporary American literary scene.
Frederick Barthelme

14. This Mississippi born, African-American poet made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison, which recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after his arrest for robbery in 1960.
Etheridge Knight

15.  Born in Indianola, Mississippi, this author writes largely within the Southern tradition, drawing his themes and characters from Southern history.  His many honors include the Mississippi Authors Award, the California Book Award, and the 2000 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Fiction, and the 2010 Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence; he was also a finalist for the 2005 PEN/Faulkner award.
Steve Yarbrough