Have enough spare can sees but havent released books. Released this past july. This is live coverage of the inaugural mississippi book festival in jackson, mississippi. [inaudible conversations] good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We welcome you to the mississippi book festival, to our harper lee panel. The rules the we have up in esre, there will be no if you actually made it in youe. With beverages and would like ty ask you to go to a garbage can and places in the garbage can. The next thing, please everyone silence your cell phones. Hones. We need everyone at this particular moment to please silence your cell phones. I would like to introduce the moderator amanda nelson. She is the managing editor of a riot the largest book site ink north america. Shes also a judge of theal 2016th translated book award and is an expert on the topic she is about to lead on thehe discussion discussion. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the harper lee panel. Ea [applause] thank you. Id like being called expert on something. Thats pretty nice. Ll im amended theyll send thet editor of book riot and i would like to reiterate im going to quickly introduce my panelists and then we will jump right and in the last ms will be reserved fridays questions and if you have questions during that time. This is my panel obviously. First weio have sterling plumppi the author of 14 books including home bass ornate wood smoke and blues narratives. Ters the university of illinoisssor chicago whereme he served on the faculty and africanamerican studies and English Department had most recently served as the master of fine arts at chicago university. The recipient of numerous awards as a blues poet and africanamerican cultural storyteller including the 2014 american book awards of literature. 4 currently the sponsor the writing residents at sanibel university. [applause] next is Beth Ann Fennelly richie directs the program ad ors message. Yer work has been included in the best american poetry series. She has published three poetry breaks her first open house sub seven when the first kenyan review prize the writers award in facebook since tope, poetry books. D heard she has also published a book of nonfictions. Family write essays on travel and science Country Living oxford american and others. Hern thank you so much. [applause] next is up on the author of the highly acclaimed utility of novel for young adults. F thame critically it claimed comingofage story followed byn up close. In between came grading smart, stories of writing smart creative writing advice of stories for screenwriters andd h dozens of short stories and essays and articles appearing the Los Angeles Times or Washington Post salon and others. Carrie teaches creative writing at the university of alabama birmingham so welcome kerry madden. [applause]ory and last but not least w. Ralphi eubanks is the author of evers, long time. Fellowsh i housed at thipe end of the rod a story of three generations of an interracial family and the american south. Ins a guggenheim fellow and was the recipient of schwartz fellowship at the new america foundation. Be in his essays have appeared in the american scholar the Washington Post the wall street journal timess and National Public eldio. He now lives in d. C. So, thank you. [applause] welcome, come on and. Ecen we are going to jump right in. El in light of go set a i r watchmans recent u. S. American readers about their favorite books on race, civil rights is usually at the top of the list. I would like to ask the panel why they think that is, why do many readers consider to kill a mockingbird to the americas equality novel when it is not about that at all . You dont have to go down a line. A lot of it has to do with the time to kill a mockingbird came out. Was released in 1960, the film version, 1962. Because of what was going on historically at that time, it is tied in with all of that. I was working on my piece for time on the eighteenth, i randomly asked people what year was to kill a mockingbird set in and not a Single Person said 1935. I think we conflate the timing of it and because of the time we often think it must be a civil rights novel. That is one of the reasons. And the way that harper lee worked with folklore and myth exploring some 7 myths and blowing through the means always. That is another reason. I agree that it was the time and also with go set a watchman and what happened to charleston, her books come out at these explosive periods and that is what people think of it as. Is possible that harper lee is incorrect in her assertion. It would not be the first time a writer doesnt have a good sense of his or her own projects. I think it is a novel about inequality, racial inequality is at the core of the novel and she claims it is not is curious. I think it is more subtle. 19911995, the anc invited me to south africa, revolution is supposed to change the second place. There were a lot of discussions and one gentleman said to me directly we will address the issue of race more directly in a country of black majority than you will ever address it in on america, a country of white majority. I think america is somewhat in denial. You have a black man on trial for a white southerner defending him come and innocent narrator is seemed not to have been poisoned by the racist environment. I dont care what harper lee calls it, at social justice, whatever, at the base of civil rights, but it is. America is in denial about race. Absolutely in denial. I live in chicago. The mothers of these black boys being shot by police in, that that is not race, nonsense. I thought it was a brilliant novel mischaracterized by its creator. Along that line, in go set a watchman atticus goes to plan meetings, opposes integration vocally and readers have reacted very visibly to this new version of Atticus Finch including one instance of a family named their son atticus changing his name legally because of the newport frail. Why do you think readers reacted so strongly to a new version of a fictional character . He is not real so why is it so important and what should readers who love atticus, what they think and atticus represents in to kill a mockingbird do with this new atticus who is not nearly the same in quality as the original . Atticus is part of the southern myth. That is the thing. Atticus has become very real. There is a plaque to atticus at the courthouse. I was in monroe vote for the Literary Festival and after the performance of to kill a mockingbird with fellow writers will standing by that statute, we were talking about him as if he actually existed and i think it is that idea that what atticus represented, these values we wanted to have, white southerners wanted to have and atticus served as a proxy for a lot of that. We also refer to southern heros, he is a real atticus, that is the highest compliment and that complement is now gone with this change in who atticus is. They are two fictional universes and not on the continuing based on the way if you really study to kill a mockingbird and go set a watchman they are very different fictional universes. They overlap but theres also a bizarre quality to go set a watchman. Speak into the microphone. Gregory pecks portrayal made in this iconic white savior, it is important to remember in to kill a mockingbird, a woman i heard speak at auburn and montgomery said in to kill a mockingbird he wasnt at the school when scout was playing that ham, he was human in to kill a mockingbird, he was not perfect and he is fiction too. I do think gregory peck and he makes compromises in to kill a mockingbird. There is the sense of betrayal for a lot of people who really worshiped atticus and did accept him not just as a character but as a symbol. Maybe many of us came to that book as younger readers. To me it was one of the first serious books i ever loved that i still love and it is hard to match those two kinds of knowledge and look in hindsight act to kill a mockingbird and what do we make of it now . One thing, the different age of the point of view character which is to say in to kill a mockingbird scouts is young looking at her father through the point of view of a girl and she does see it more simply and the older spouse is looking at the point of view as an adult and is more nuanced and i dont think atticus seems mortal. The dog is dead in the street, he can do anything. Gregory peck who apparently harper lee call yummy adds to the way we view him and it is hard to wrap our new knowledge around. Speaking of go set a watchman lets talk about the release of that novel. The official story is atticus at harper lees and lawyers founded in a safe deposit box and it is a first draft of to kill a mockingbird better editor said pull out some aspects and it took two years to turn go set a watchman into to kill a mockingbird and there have been a lot of thick pieces about whether harper lee is able to consent to the book being published at all. I want to ask what you thought of the release of the novel and the way it has been handled and the publishing of it, should it have been published at all . I would argue no. Should have been left in an archive for scholars to study. The other thing, i know that it was not edited and someone whos spent a lot of my career as an editor that it was just when i read go set a watchman i knew as an editor that these flashbacks to childhood are really working so why dont you go back and use that as the way you are constructing your narrative. I am almost certain, we know that is what happened. Once you know that it is hard to read go set a watchman and not think of it as you are reading a rough draft. At least for me as an editor. I have spoken to other people who dont have that editorial mindsets and they are perfectly fine with it, seeing it as a separate fictional universe almost, i understand and respect that. I also think as i was trying to write about go set a watchman i was trying to get a copy in advance but i couldnt and was told only two people had read the manuscript. That is something about six weeks before publication kind of as an editor and publishing professional made me made my ears perk up a little bit. What i appreciate about it being published and is confusing all the difference stories that have come out but when i like about the publication of go set a watchman is we discover how a young writer finds her a voice and that is most important, how she found her voice and it is also a novel of redemption and reconciliation like trying to find a way to make peace, seeing atticus as as an adult and not taking away the hero worship as a child. I get it but i also it was exciting for me as someone who wrote her biography to see how she came to write it and imagine i wish we had letters, i wish there were letters we could see their relationship. I read an excellent piece on the publication of go set a watchman and he end ed with this beautiful line after all it is a sin to kill a mockingbird suggesting the new book shouldnt have been published and part of the agreed and part of me thinks if i heard a second manuscript exist out there and someone decided not to publish it i would be furious. I want to read, let me decide. I would say it does sound like a pr concoction that they found the book in the safety deposit box. That seems very unlikely to meet but coming from a ryders perspective i also think those of us who loved to kill a mockingbird tend to think that this book sprang into creation and was destined, ordained, a 26yearold terrified woman everyday facing a blank page and trying to work forward in the dock. This is also a writer who didnt have publishing history, a handful of short stories, so what . Then she publishes a book that wins a pulitzer prize, what is she going to write next . Imagine the pressure, she was writing the whole time. I took a lot of comfort, she said what she had to say. And next door, talking about the fact that the whole time harper lee was writing it mustve been painful for her to be writing and never to publish. Then i think why now . Why take his old manuscript she is not adding and really cant edit and publishing it now . Part of me thinks who are we to say she shouldnt, and also she is 89. Maybe she doesnt care what we think anymore. Speaking of atticus. Kerry madden mentioned go set a watchman is about a child discovering her hero is not as heroic as she fought and that closely mirrors american readerss experience with the book, we read this and think he is not this mythological person that i thought he was and i want to talk aboutas it intersects with is happening in Current Events with Race Relations in america and how atticus seems when i talk to readers they say things like i loved to kill a mockingbird, i cant be a racist, that the represents to people a false sense of how far we have come when we havent really. I heard people say atticus is not the hero we love but the hero we deserved in go set a watchman. Is that true . Having a more realistic portrayal of a white man in the 30s, go set a watchman is what we need now as opposed to the atticus of to kill a mockingbird. You are giving the look. It is difficult. I am a southerner. I was born in clinton, mississippi, grew up on a plantation, raises a difficult thing, to try to discuss. Let me begin with one comment. Stoically carmichael was an activist, he relates an incident where he was beaten by the plant in alabama. In fact he was kicked. And he says five years later he was in washington d. C. And a young man tapped him on the shoulder, are you mr. Carmichael . And he said yes and the gentleman said i am the one who kicked you in alabama. I was wrong. Part of the problem with the novel, atticus, whether or not these impressions. Harper lee is a brilliant novel. I will get it this way she is an incredible novelist, deserves all of the accolades for to kill a mockingbird. When you reach that height, i dont care what the right to love novel or not, very few novelists in the 20th century have written a book as well or is important. Its just that simple but we ari discussing race and im in Mississippi Valley state in the delta. I dont know anything about the opinion of the whites but i dotr know m i go to a restaurant and people treat me kind, you know what i mean . But i almost have a heart attack. I go in there and all of the people cooking are black and im the only black diner. You know im trying to say, dont know thats race or not. I dont know if its getting into my head but it does not look like or feel like anything has changed over the last 30 years although you have any number of black electedeaso officials in sunflower county. Im sitting down their eating and for some reason they wont let any other black people and except for me or something. Im the only one thatsic dinin. I really dont know how to discuss race in america. Let me be honest with you, i do not know how to discuss race in america because the only president we need to listen to b. B. You build an academy that one ot two black people go to it thethy most and we say we need to lock arms. Was it b. B. King, the singer ane the other thing i find interesting about mississippi they said muddy waters was born in rolling park and i go out to rolling part and people say hef was not born here. He was born down there in some y field in a house that no longer exists. , it seems that the whites have not made availed themselves of it. I think there is this this is one of the things i wrote about. I think theres this myth of equality that permeates southern culture. Think about it. Were a region that developed something called separate but equal, and theres this whole myth of equality. One thing i think that harper lee was trying to do was trying to shatter that myth that we have. Equality. We setting thises up so erv has thinks up so everybody has we have separate but equal. She was trying to break through some of the myths. Today, because we have black lives Matter Movement and that a really important movement, but also a movement that is trying to find its voice and finding policies that will actually work with that, and which is very complex. That the issue of race in America Today is an incredibly complicated issue. During the civil rights movement, there were dissecrete policy resolutions that the naacp and sncc had. Voting rights, equal ckesmmodations but with the and that is a really difficult thing. And diphenyl she was trying to give us a platform i am not sure that she knew exactly but give her credit for at least trying to put it out there. We may have placed our own apology on top of that over the last 50 years. But a least it gives us a platform. She was friends with mary tucker and because of all the publicity of mockingbird they became good friends and she helped to provide a lot of scholarships to students of color but none of that was known. That was just talked about one month ago because she didnt want that known. She provided a lot of scholarships. There is so much publicity in that town. Is all the mythology. We will move off of this topic but to talk about her as an author gsa ink and author could do that now . A debut novelist to put out a book like this then never do publicity and succeed . As backwash that ability . Authors today our children said the best thing for ago we were talking about the same thing and they said if the book did not hit it big she would be of hustling like the rest of us. It is hard to imagine in the face of a page but obviously we dont have a facebook or twitter but the only one i can think of nobody knows who she is or anything about her. But it is exhausting of what you are expected to do. Because they can. So a friend of mine is not odd facebook it should never will be i think it is great. I love that she did not have to do that. Title think that would ever ever ever ever happen today. [laughter] that is a Publishing Industry has changed so much. I did my best i wrote my book and here it is. My last book was a novel and i dont have a Facebook Page and the publisher bozs frustrated with me and to i with lot email people to ask them to buy my book. But then i would hire somebody some day to treat. [laughter] en then we talked about it i dont even know how to do that. To save my party is over. Those days are gone. And it is sad react a point we have turned it into your shameless hucksters. Has the publishers do that for us. They would push you out the you were to be the talent and you could pull away from that and unfortunately now the way things evolved. Is of a mystery they dont know the crazy things that people do. Like stipe. Did canby helpful but where is that place he went to to get it in the first place . And shea is the exception because it is so notable and she gets some notoriety. It is a brilliant the hour scheme. I believe she is a woman. This is my last question. What is harper lee open the legacy . And will she reread