The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour is truly lit for the month of August highlighted by the return of Jesmyn Ward, the two-time National Book Award winner who will join us on Saturday, August 24 at 7 pm at the Walter Anderson Museum (WAMA) in Ocean Springs, MS.

Ticket info/details here.

No worries if you can’t make it. The show will air on all our platforms and radio affiliates the weekend of Sept 5 – Sept 8.

The novel tells the often-brutal story of an enslaved mother and daughter who are separated and sold in pre-Civil War New Orleans. Such heavy subject matter would be rough-going in lesser hands, but Ward weaves this tale with lyrical prose, get-under-your-skin characters and a touch of magic.

She’s a master (Mississippi should be proud!) and the reader totally understands why she’s so acclaimed.

The book recently won the 2024 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction and was named a Best Book by The New Yorker, Time, Vanity Fair and, yes, Our Lady of Letters de Kosciusko, Oprah.

Other guests on the Ocean Springs show will include New Orleans songwriter/guitarist Alex McMurray and Jackson, MS soul/jazz vocalist, Ally Durr.

I’ll play host and we’ll have our cool house band, Paul Tate and the Yalobushwhackers.

The Ocean Springs show caps off a busy month for the show. Other August highlights, a mixture of “greatest hits” and new shows, includes:

Country music superstars, Chapel Hart (Aug. 22- Aug. 25);

Mississippi novelist Michael Farris Smith (Aug. 8 -11);

Bluesman Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, photo-journalist Kate Medley and songwriter Beth McKee (Aug, 15-Aug. 18);

Mississippi author Harrison Scott Key and troubadour Charlie Mars (Aug.22-Aug. 25);

Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Robert St. John and Anthony Thaxton with the Original Pinettes Brass Band and Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (Aug. 29- Sept. 1).

We’ll be back in Oxford on Thursday, Sept. 5 at 6 pm at the Powerhouse Arts Center to kick off our Fall 2024 season.

Get a hit of culture before we all become football zombies! Tune in, cool off – Get Lit!

See ya on the radio-

J.D.