A state with such a deep cultural history is sure to produce generations of creative talent who leave their mark across the arts. Mississippi’s literary legacy is full of such works, authored by titans like William Faulkner, Richard Ford and Margaret Walker, as well as relative newcomers like Jesmyn Ward and Natasha Trethewey. The Mississippi Writers Trail currently honors 13 revered authors with historical markers.
Fittingly, the Tennessee Williams marker is located in Clarksdale, where the playwright spent his early childhood. Williams worked Delta memories such as Moon Lake, which appears in works like “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Glass Menagerie,” into many of his plays. Novelist, photographer and short story writer Eudora Welty’s marker is located at the Jackson home where she lived and wrote for most of her life. The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is open for tours.
Welty’s friend Willie Morris, who worked his way up from the Yazoo City boyhood he wrote about in North Toward Home and My Dog Skip to become the youngest editor of Harper’s Magazine, is celebrated with a marker in the town he made famous. Through his writing, editing and enormous personality, he served as an ambassador for Mississippi and the South to the rest of the country and the world.