to the family business and this family s business is writing. anthony: from as early as 1919 through the 60s, faulkner wrote extensively about the post-civil war south. he was the first author to do so at a time when most writers were writing about anything but. bill griffith: he always said that he wrote about a south torn between itself. torn between the old ways, the old traditional ways, and modern development. he said he was gonna break the antebellum code. anthony: right. bill griffith: and he did. anthony: but bill griffith: he did, and yet he had those hobbies and interests that were definitely of a gentry class and a gentry nature. jack pendarvis: his portrait and his horse bill griffith: there s a great example. anthony: yeah. bill griffith: in his in his riding habit. that s a great example. you do get to a certain level of success, and all of a sudden, this seems like a good idea. and it s never a good idea at that age. anthony: at any age, re
was off the bat. if you wanna write, you come to oxford. anthony: do you think that s true? well, apparently yes. jack pendarvis: like that line in barton fink, you can t throw a rock without hitting a writer. and then he says, do me a favor, throw it hard. john currence: it s easy to just look at mississippi and go, that just happens down there, so we re good, our hands are clean. it s a totally misperceived place. when i came, i fell in love with the place. i never thought that i would there s something to it, but you can t put your finger on what it is.
faulkner wrote such american classics as the sound and the fury, as i lay dying, light in august and absalom absalom. and many of his works took place in a fictional county, a place very much like this place, in mississippi. this is where faulkner started his writing career, in this room here. for the past ten years, bill griffith has been curator at william faulkner s estate. he added this room after he won the nobel prize. on the wall here is an outline of one of his novels. that was his greatest book. faulkner thought this was his masterpiece. jack pendarvis is the author of your body is changing, the mysterious secret of the valuable treasure, and awesome as well as a staff writer for the game-changing animated series adventure time, all works of which i am a
i think racism is one of those great things in the world that you ll never solve and that s why faulkner wrote about it. writers, as i know from looking in my own dark heart, are generally terrible people. put ten of them together and it s like putting your head in a bag full of snakes. i meet a bunch of them above city grocery, john currence s place on the square. there s the brilliant author tom franklin and his wife, the poet beth ann fennelly. grisham writers in residence, megan abbott, jack pendarvis, a poet chayuma elliott. bryce thompson a senior writer for espn. fellow writer on the series treme, chris. novelist ace atkins. poet derek harell is originally from milwaukee. crime novelist billy boyle from brooklyn. downstairs, currence s restaurant city grocery cranks out many delicious things.
megan abbott, jack pendarvis, a poet chayuma elliott. bryce thompson a senior writer for espn. fellow writer on the series treme, chris. novelist ace atkins. poet derek harell is originally from milwaukee. crime novelist billy boyle from brooklyn. downstairs, currence s restaurant city grocery cranks out many delicious things. the man known as big bad chef, aka johnny snack, is sending some of those goodies upstairs as there s nothing professional writers like more than free food. usually, you put five writers in a room, it s an ugly, hell broth of envy, hatred we all hate tommy. yeah, that goes without saying. even me. i hate me worst of all. around here anyway the writers are really supportive of each other. for writers to argue would be like arguing over a piece of