MSU authors participate in book festival

Three Mississippi State University authors were featured in the annual Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson this weekend.

The nonprofit festival took place Saturday, and included 60 authors total. Mississippi State University authors participating included associate professors Michael Kardos and Catherine Pierce and Chief Communications Officer Sid Salter. All three authors gave lectures on their books Saturday. Pierce, along with Kardos, leads the MSU Department of English creative writing program and is the author of “The Tornado is the World” and “The Girls of Peculiar,” both of which won Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Prizes. Pierce also holds a Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize for “Famous Last Words”

Kardos' books include Esquire Best Book of the Year selection “The Three-Day Affair” and textbook, “The Art and Craft of Fiction: A Writer's Guide,” among others.

Salter is regarded as one of the nation's best state political reporters, and has written a biography of longtime MSU sports announcer Jack Cristil. The biography led to a scholarship in the MSU Department of Communication honoring Cristil.

In addition, five others with MSU ties participated in the festival: MSU Department of Art Artist-in-Residence William Dunlap, retired Stennis Institute of Government and Economic Development Program Philip D. “Phil” Hardwick and alumni Jeffery B. Howell, Michael Farris Smith, and Timothy B. Smith

The festival was held in Jackson at the Mississippi State Capitol and the Galloway United Methodist Church. More than 6,200 people were expected to attend, and C-SPAN covered portions of the event.