Mississippi State University Libraries has launched “A Banner Day” program at Mitchell Memorial Library.  Each month during the academic year, the library will unveil a banner commemorating one of the Mississippi writers on the Southern Literary Trail.  The Southern Literary Trail is the nation’s only tristate literary trail.  Covering Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, it commemorates the Southern classical writers of the 20th century.  The Southern Literary Trail is headquartered at Mississippi State University Libraries.

These banners will remind students and other library patrons of Mississippi’s role in world literature.  They will also serve to encourage reading the writers’ works and learning more about their lives and the Mississippi heritage that inspired them.  Designed by library staff member Jennifer Jones, banners feature an image of the writer as well as a personal quote from the writer or one of the writer’s works.

The initial “Banner Day” today commemorated world-renowned playwright Tennessee Williams.  Born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus in 1911, Williams won two Pulitzer Prizes.  On a return visit to his hometown, he said “Home is where you hang your childhood, and Mississippi to me is the beauty spot of creation, a dark, wide, spacious land that you can breathe in.”

Future banners will commemorate the seven additional Mississippi writers who are on the Southern Literary Trail.  Follow these unveilings and related events of Mitchell Memorial Library on Facebook and Twitter and at http://library.msstate.edu.  Follow the Southern Literary Trail at http://www.southernliterarytrail.org.

Photograph by Isa Stratton, MSU Libraries

(L to R) Stephen Cunetto, Associate Dean of Libraries, Frances Coleman, Dean of Libraries, and Sarah McCullough, Coordinator of Cultural Heritage Projects

Submitted by

Brad Moreland

Public Relations & Marketing

MSU Libraries