COURTESY: GRAHAMWORKS.NET
If you happen to find yourself looking through the newly printed pages of the 2015 Conference for the Book handout, you will get all the information you need about this accumulation of creative talent. On the cover, you will find a smiling charismatic picture of Margaret Walker accompanying the who, what, when and where technicalities of the conference.
This year’s Conference for the Book is dedicated to Mississippi writer Margaret Walker and begins with an exhibition and a keynote lecture by Maryemma Graham at 1:30 p.m. today in the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics.
According to her multiple bios, Graham is a professor of English and African-American studies at the University of Kansas. She has taught at the University of Kansas since 1998, including the year she spent as the Langston Hughes Visiting Professor. Graham is the author and editor of 10 books, many of which were studies of Walker herself.
“The conference is dedicated to Margaret Walker, who would have been celebrating her 100th birthday this year,” said James Thomas, the director of the conference and the university’s associate director for publications at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. “Maryemma Graham is the preeminent Margaret Walker scholar in America. She’s done an immense amount of scholarly writing on Walker.”
Walker was a poet, novelist, biographer and essayist who grew up in a family of intellectuals that seemingly influenced her literary lifestyle as a child. She finished high school at the age of 14, received her undergraduate degree in English from Northwestern and later attended the University of Iowa for graduate school. Walker’s first published poem was published in the W.E.B. DuBois’ “Crisis,” and her first book of poetry, “For My People,” was published in 1942. Walker’s most critically acclaimed work was her only novel “Jubilee” (1966), a work that tells of Walker’s great-grandmother’s experiences with slavery and of her new life after Reconstruction. The book won the Houghton-Mifflin Literary Fellowship and took her 30 years to write. Walker was also a professor of English at Jackson State University for 30 years.
“James Thomas extended an invitation because I am Walker’s official biographer and have done the most work on her,” Graham said. “The biography, titled ‘The House Where My Soul Lives: The Life of Margaret Walker,’ is due out from Oxford in 2016.”
However, Graham’s studies of Walker are not her only connection to the talented writer.
“I met Walker when I was a grad student at Northwestern,” Graham said. “She was visiting there for a quarter, and it was where she had done her undergrad work. We remained in touch, and, when she learned that my husband and I were being recruited to Ole Miss, she called me and encouraged me to take the job and work more closely with her, which is exactly what happened.”
Within the conference’s handout, Graham’s bio picture is thoughtful and complex and one can only gather that this is because of the large amount of knowledge that she has undoubtedly gained from her experiences and studies.
“(I encourage aspiring literary professionals to) read broadly and not narrowly,” Graham said. “As you know, the South still has some interesting divisions between the white South and the black South. There is an Old Southern Studies model that perpetuated some of these divisions. There is a New Southern Studies that I hope will forge unity between these two entities.”
Students who are aware of Walker and her literary presence, as well as the great time and dedication of Graham’s scholarship, can appreciate such words of advice.
“I have read some of Walker’s works for class, and, while they were assignments, it was still interesting to read and study her,” political science major Amber Goode said. “I think it is always great to study writers and professionals from the familiar areas. To me, it is inspiring and, an aspiring writer myself, I look to the writings of authors such as Margaret Walker. I will be attending the keynote lecture because it would be cool to hear what Dr. Graham says about a great writer that she herself knew.”
The 22nd Oxford Conference for the Book will be held today through Friday.
