MSU author wins 2024 Welty Prize for impactful scholarship
Contact: Sarah Nicholas
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State University Assistant Professor Kemeshia Swanson is this year’s recipient of the Eudora Welty Prize for her new book “Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability,” a 2024 University Press of Mississippi publication.
The annual award is bestowed by the Mississippi University for Women in collaboration with the University Press of Mississippi. Named after the celebrated Southern author, the Welty Prize honors works that deepen the understanding of culture, identity and the human experience. Swanson’s book has been praised for its bold examination of the challenges Black women face in a society shaped by violence and respectability politics.
Swanson, also nominated for the 2024 Museum of African American History’s Stone Book Award for the same publication, will give a reading at the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium, Oct. 24-26, in Columbus, alongside other prominent authors.
“I am deeply honored to receive the Welty Prize. This book is a tribute to the strength of Black women throughout history and a call to action for continued advocacy,” said Swanson. A native of the Mississippi Delta, Swanson holds a joint appointment in MSU’s English department and African American Studies program. Her upcoming work “Love and War: Intimacy and Activism in the Works of Jesmyn Ward” is slated to be published in 2026.
For more details about MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences or the Department of English, visit www.cas.msstate.edu or www.english.msstate.edu.
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