Mississippi Writers Page

The Mississippi Writers Page is a showcase for the many writers, both past and present, who have called the Magnolia state home. Biographies of the writers, information about their books and other publications, and bibliographies of other information sources (including literary criticism) are among the features available here. It is an ongoing project.

The Mississippi Writers Page (MWP) began in the late 1990s as “a multi-faceted Internet Resource about writers in, from, or otherwise associated with the state of Mississippi,” well before the launch of Wikipedia and collaborative Web 2.0 technologies. Managed by John B. Padgett in the Department of English at the University of Mississippi, contributors included then-current UM faculty and graduate students as well as former graduate students sending profiles from beyond campus. Despite intentions, little content was added to the MWP after Padgett left UM in the mid-2000s, but the pages remained on the university web servers until the early 2020s.

In an effort to preserve the content of the MWP's website, we have compiled most of the original text files into an open educational resource (OER) and newsletters, and rebuilt the original timeline and literary map using open access sources. We did not, however, update any of the content, nor create any new entries. We are also including the original site files in the event that someone wants to pick up and revive the project, whether as an extension of the OER text, or a new website.

If looking for a more up-to-date, actively maintained resource, we recommend Mississippi Writers and Musicians.