Tom Junod is author of the memoir, In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man (Doubleday), an intensely emotional “detective” story powered by a series of cascading family revelations.

Junod traces his charismatic, philandering father who tried to mold his son in his image, the many secrets he hid and Junod’s discovery of truths about his family, himself and, ultimately, what it means to be a man.

Tom Junod is senior writer for ESPN, where his work has won an Emmy and the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting.

He is a two-time National Magazine Award winner, and has been honored with a James Beard Award for essay writing. Previously he was a staff writer at GQ and Esquire.

The film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was based on his article in Esquire.

He lives in Atlanta with his wife and daughter.

AJ White is a poet and educator from Georgia.

He is the current winner of the Willie Morris Award for Poetry for his poem, “In Arcadia.”

His debut poetry collection, Blue Loop, is from University of Georgia Press and won a prestigious National Poetry Series competition.

White’s poems express his kinship with the natural world.

A recent article in the Binghamton University News (where he is pursuing his Ph.D.) reveals his writing process starts with a walk, his thinking is improved when he lives near rivers and, in fact, “many of his works are themed around place and nature and, more specifically, rivers and clouds.”

AJ lives and teaches creative writing in New York.

NOTE: AJ will join his fellow Willie Morris Award winners, Susan Gregg Gilmore (fiction) and Kevin Sack (non-fiction) on Friday, March 27 at 4 pm at Off Square Books for a book signing and closing reception of the Oxford Conference for the Book, organized by the UM Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

Celebrate the book!

Jemero Carter & Kingdomology is a contemporary gospel group from Memphis, TN that blends the sounds of traditional, trap, and contemporary gospel to reach across generational barriers.

The group’s mission is to “release the attributes of the Kingdom through our music and worship.”

Their latest album is The Glory Encounter.

The Otha Turner Boys are a North Mississippi collective who carry on the centuries-old fife and drum music tradition.

The genre was popularized by the late Otha Turner (1908–2003) of Tate County, MS, who appeared in films by Martin Scorsese and received a National Heritage Fellowship.

Historians say the musical style emerged after the Civil War, with its mix of military fife and drums and African rhythms.