Nowhere else in Mississippi can you find as many successful authors in one place over the same weekend, all willing to meet you, shake your hand and sign copies of their books for you.

More than 20 nationally known authors will be at the 23rd annual Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration, today through Sunday.

This Olympic Award-winning conference is well known for its exemplary programming.

But it is also well known for its custom book shop, ably managed each year by Mary Emrick and her staff of Turning Pages Books & More in Natchez.

The NLCC shop again will stock and sell copies of books and CDs by NLCC speakers, including some books that are hard to find and are out of print. Partial proceeds from book sales benefit the conference.

If you are a book lover, this is the place for you.

The shop will be open this evening, through Saturday evening, in the lobby of the Natchez Convention Center.

Signing sessions will take place three times daily, honoring all the conference authors. We are especially pleased that Natchez’s own New York Times best-selling novelist Greg Iles will sign books Saturday night.

Authors and their book signings are as follows:

4 9 p.m. today: Lewis Lord, signing copies of a free publication that contains 11 of his cover stories written for U.S. News & World Report

4 Noon Friday: George Lankford, “Arkansas Slave Narratives,” “Bearing Witness,” “Looking for Lost Lore,” “Reachable Stars and Native American Legends”

Terrence Roberts, CDs of his storytelling

Larry Wells, “Every Day by the Sun”

4 4:15 p.m. Friday: Tricia Walker and Davis Raines, CDs

Michael Mills, “Twice Told Tombigbee Tales”

4 9 p.m. Friday: Frank X. Walker, “Affrilachia Poems” and “Buffalo Dance”

4 12:20 p.m. Saturday: Jerry W. Ward Jr., “Katrina Papers”

4 Curtis Wilkie, “Dixie,” “Arkansas Mischief” and “Fall of the House of Zeus”

Marcelle Bienvenu, “Cooking Up a Storm,” “Cajun Cooking for Beginners,” “Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic and Can You Make a Roux”

Alferdteen Harrison, “Those Who Stayed Home During the Great Migration, 1950 to the Present”

4 2:45 p.m. Saturday: Chuck Bolton “Hardest Deal of All” and “Mississippi an Illustrated History”

5:45 p.m. Saturday: Patti Carr Black, “American Masters,” “Mississippi Story,” “Art in Mississippi,” “Early Escapades: Eudora Welty,” “Southern Writers Quiz Book,” “Touring Literary Mississippi and Passionate Observer”

John D. W. Guice, “By His Own Hand”

4 9:15 p.m. Saturday: Julia Reed, “Ham Biscuits,” “Hostess Gowns; My House on First Street,” “Queen of the Turtle Derby”

Roy Blount Jr., “About Three Bricks Shy of a Load,” “Alphabet Juice,” “Alphabetter Juice” and “Roy Blount’s book of Southern Humor”

Greg Iles, “Devil’s Punchbowl,” “Third Degree,” “True Evil,” “Turning Angel,” “Blood Memory,” “Footprints of God,” “Sleep No More,” “Dead Sleep,” “24 Hours,” “The Quiet Game,” “Mortal Fear,” “Black Cross” and “Spandau Phoenix”

The NLCC is co-sponsored by Copiah-Lincoln Community College, Natchez National Historical Park, Mississippi Department of Archives and History and Mississippi Public Broadcasting, with partial funding from the Mississippi Humanities Council and the Mississippi Arts Commission.

The conference agenda can be found at www.colin.edu/nlcc. We hope to see you at the NLCC!

 

Jim Barnett is a part of the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration.