(Photo from 100 Men Hall website)
- Authors Ellen Ann Fentress and Ellen Gabardi as they join Ellen Morris Prewitt for a celebration of the launch of Prewitt’s new book.
It’s not necessary to be named Ellen to be a celebrated writer in Mississippi. But to be celebrated at “Ellenpalooza,” it’s pretty much mandatory.
Such is the case with authors Ellen Ann Fentress and Ellen Gabardi as they join Ellen Morris Prewitt for a celebration of the launch of Prewitt’s new book, When We Were Murderous Time Traveling Women.
The event will take place on Saturday, May 16, at the historic 100 Men Hall, located at 303 Union Street in Bay St. Louis.
Prewitt’s book is a Mississippi story set in New Orleans.
“I took facts from the lives of my three ancestral grandmothers, ladled them into a blender, and hit frappe,” she said.
On Prewitt’s website, she says that Etoile is the heroine of the book, who inadvertently brings the last Dauphine of France back to life in modern-day New Orleans, where she enlists her ancestral grannies to help fix the mess she’s made. But calling on three murderous time-traveling women might not be her best idea. Lovingly characterized as Confederacy of Dunces meets The End of the F***g World, the story asks in the most comic way possible: how do we recover after we’ve been forced to kill?
A former attorney, Prewitt practiced law in Jackson for 19 years. She now splits her time between Memphis, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Prewitt is a writing group facilitator in Memphis, where she has spent eight years working with men and women experiencing homelessness. She is a co-founder of the School for Contemplative Living’s Contemplative Writing Group. A former Peter Taylor Fellow, Prewitt is the current Writer-in-Residence at 100 Men Hall, an iconic Blues site on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Joining Prewitt at the event will be Jackson-based author Ellen Ann Fentress, who writes about Deep South politics and culture.
“I look at how big truths pulse in individual stories,” she states on her website.
The author of The Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning, Fentress writes about “level fields, whiteness, women, resilience, visual art, French, and food. I like to spot the currents submerged beneath a subject, including the way the South’s past permeates its present. Using the present to reckon with the past is the way to a better future.”
Fentress produced a 56-minute documentary, Eyes on Mississippi, about the career of civil-rights journalist Bill Minor, which has been screened at universities and other venues around the country, and it aired on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.
Rounding out Ellenpalooza is Ellen Gabardi, a poet and facilitator of contemplative groups. Ellen completed a two-year training in Spiritual Direction through The Center for Ministry at Millsaps College and a two-year training in Leading Small Groups and Retreats from Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. Gabardi instinctively finds herself practicing “Everyday Lectio,” where she notices the holy in everyday life.
Hearing all the talented Ellens speak in one place will be a treat, and the venue is worth the trip – the 100 Men Hall was a famed stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit, and has been named a “Must See Venue” by Rolling Stone Magazine. It received the 2024 Mississippi Governor’s Arts Award for Excellence for Arts in the Community and is a site on the Mississippi Blues Trail. The 100 Men Hall is the only endowed African-American landmark in Mississippi.
Susan Marquez
