In this episode of Mississippi Stories, esteemed 2016 – 2021 Mississippi Poet Laureate, author and Ole Miss professor Beth Ann Fennelly sits down with Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey to talk about her writing, creativity and how she plows through setbacks.

Fennelly is the author of three poetry collections: Unmentionables (W.W. Norton, 2008), Tender Hooks (W.W. Norton, 2004), and Open House (Zoo Press, 2002), which was a winner of the 2001 Kenyon Review Prize, the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award and a Book Sense Top Ten Poetry Pick. She is also the author of the nonfiction book Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother (W.W. Norton, 2007) and coauthor, alongside her husband Tom Franklin, of the novel The Tilted World (HarperCollins, 2014). Her sixth book, Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs (W.W. Norton, 2017), was named an Atlanta Journal Constitution Best Book, a Goodreaders Favorite for 2017, and the winner of the Housatonic Book Prize.

Fennelly teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi, where she was named Outstanding Teacher of the Year. She and Franklin live in Oxford with their three children. You can purchase Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs at Square Books.

The post Mississippi Stories: Beth Ann Fennelly appeared first on Mississippi Today.