​2024 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award Nominees


Visual Arts

Nominations:​ 
Fischer Galleries Show: Charlie Buckley, Charlie Buckley, Oxford
Mississippi Panorama, Charlie Buckley, Oxford
Soul Retrieval, Janet Gorzegno, Hattiesburg
Memory Keepers, Mary Hardy, Ocean Springs
Mudlarkings, Blair Hobbs, Oxford
Paintings, Richard Kelso, Richard Kelso, Jackson
Watercolors and Realism, Laurin McCracken, Fort Worth, Texas
What Became of Dr. Smith, Noah Saterstrom, Nashville, Tennessee
Jazz Garden, Traci Stover, Hattiesburg
Preservation of Roadside Stories through Visual Art, Gloria Gipson Suggs, Holly Springs
Cotton Picker Art, Lee A. Washington, Rolling Fork
Show for Wurlitzer Foundation Residency, Claire Whitehurst, Greenville, South Carolina
 

Photography

Nominations:
Old Oxford Speaks to Me, Deborah Freeland, Oxford
Last Contact, Marita Gootee, Starkville
Soil, Justin Hardiman, Jackson
Light in These Hills: Oxford, Mississippi, Adam      Shemper, Healdsburg, California 

Poetry

​Nominations:
Blue Exodus, Hussain Ahmed, Cincinnati, Ohio
Daywork, Jessica Fisher, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Gatherer, Todd Osborne, Hattiesburg
Circle Back, Adam Clay, Hattiesburg
Glitter Road, January Gill O’Neil, Salem, Massachusetts
Slaughterhouse for Old Wives’ Tales, Hannah V. Warren, Irondale, Alabama


Music Composition (Classical)

Nominations: 
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, James Sclater, Clinton
Two Lives in Photography Musical Score, Jim “Fish” Michie, Franklin, Tennessee
Suite Música del Corazón, John Wooton, Hattiesburg
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Youth Literature

Nominations:
The World Is Ours to Cherish: A Letter to a Child, Mary Annaïse Heglar, New Orleans, Louisiana
Saving Sam: A Banjo the Dog Story, Marshall Ramsey, Madison
The Chainbreakers, Julian Randall, Chicago, Illinois
Danté Plays His Blues, Allen R. Wells, Alexandria, Virginia
 
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Fiction

​Nominations:
​Don’t Let the Devil Ride, Ace Atkins, Oxford
Beautiful Dreamers, Minrose Gwin, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Troubled Waters, Mary Annaïse Hegler, New Orleans, Louisiana
What Doesn’t Kill You Opens Your Heart, Max Hipp, Oxford
Shield the Joyous, Chad Holley, Glendale, California
Habitations: A Novel, Sheila Sundar, Oxford
Fair Youth, Lawrence Wells, Oxford
Hurricane Baby: Stories, Julie Liddell Whitehead, Brandon
That Pinson Girl, Gerry Wilson, Jackson
Lady Killer, Katherine Wood, Sandy Springs, Georgia
The Queen City Detective Agency, Snowden Wright, Benton
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Nonfiction

Nominations:
​An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South, Robert K. D. Colby, Oxford
A Republican’s Lament: Mississippi Needs Good Government Conservatives, Bill Crawford, Jackson
What Jane Austen’s Characters Read (and Why), Susan Allen Ford, Cleveland
Come! Come! Where? Where?, James Seay, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability, Kemeshia Randle Swanson, Northport, Alabama
The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi, Wright Thompson, Oxford
The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi, Boyce Upholt, New Orleans, Louisiana
Outliving the White Lie: A Southerner’s Historical, Genealogical, and Personal Journey, James Wiggins, Natchez


Life Writing


Nominations:
Small Town Living: A Coast-to-Coast Guide to People, Places, and Communities, Erin Austen Abbott, Water Valley
All the Things We Didn’t Say: Two Memoirs, Marion Garrard Barnwell, Jackson
We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Princeton, New Jersey
Watershed: Herman Murrah and the Pascagoula River Swamp, Davy Murrah. Lucedale
Bite by Bite: Nourishments & Jamborees, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Oxford
The Dead Don’t Need Reminding: In Search of Fugitives, Mississippi, and Black TV Nerd Sh*t, Julian Randall, Chicago, Illinois
The Delta in the Rearview Mirror: The Life and Death of Mississippi’s First Winery, Di Rushing, Ouray, Colorado
The House of Being, Natasha Trethewey, Evanston, Illinois
Ghostwriter, Lawrence Wells, Oxford
 
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Music Composition (Contemporary)

Nominations:
You Can See Forever (On a Clear Day), Kimble Funchess, Madison
What’s for Breakfast?, Dent May, Los Angeles, California
Searching, Staples Jr. Singers, Aberdeen
The Joke of Life, Spencer Thomas, Athens, Georgia

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