STARKVILLE, Miss.--A Sept. 29 public program at Mississippi State is the latest event in the university's 2011 Maroon Edition common reading program.
This year's Maroon Edition project focuses on "The Optimist's Daughter," the 1972 Pulitzer Prize-winning short novel by the late Jackson author Eudora Welty.
"An Evening with the Daughter's Optimists" gets under way at 7 p.m. in the Bettersworth Auditorium of Lee Hall. Tickets are not required for admission.
Discussing one of the Magnolia State's most internationally esteemed writers during the Thursday night program will be Mary Alice White, Welty's niece; Suzanne Marrs of Millsaps College, Welty's biographer; Welty friend Hunter McKelva Cole; and Peggy Prenshaw, also of Millsaps and another friend and scholar. All are from Jackson.
Noel Polk, professor emeritus of English, will serve as moderator. He also is editor of the Mississippi Quarterly, a scholarly journal of Southern culture published by the MSU College of Arts and Sciences.
The Maroon Edition project is an annual initiative to engage all freshmen, along with interested members of the campus community, in reading the same book during the summer term and fall semester. Stimulating intellectual and cultural discussions among new students, while encouraging dialogues with other students and the administration, faculty and staff, are its primary goals.
The effort also typically sponsors a major service project in conjunction with reading activities, as well as involving the local community through the Starkville Reads program. For more, visit www.maroonedition.msstate.edu.
For more information, contact Polk at 662-325-3069 or nep27@msstate.edu.
