Willie Morris

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William Weaks "Willie" Morris (November 29, 1934 — August 2, 1999), was an American writer and editor born in Jackson, Mississippi, though his family later moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi, which he immortalized in his works of prose. Morris' trademark was his lyrical prose style and reflections on the American South, particularly the Mississippi Delta. In 1967 he became the youngest editor of Harper's Magazine. He wrote several works of fiction and non-fiction, including his seminal book North Toward Home.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Morris' parents moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi when he was just six months old. Yazoo City figures prominently in much of Morris' writing. After graduating as valedictorian of his high school class, Morris traveled to Austin to attend the University of Texas. He became a member of Delta Tau Delta international fraternity, where he has a room named after him in the chapter house.

His senior year in college, Morris was elected editor of the university's student newspaper, the award-winning The Daily Texan. His scathing editorials against segregation, censorship and state officials' collusion with oil and gas interests soon earned him both respect and enmity, particularly from the university's Board of Regents.

Morris graduated in 1956 and began studying history at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He returned to the United States to be the editor of The Texas Observer, a liberal weekly magazine.

[edit] Harper's Magazine

Morris joined the staff of Harper's in 1963 as an associate editor, becoming editor-in-chief four years later, shortly before North Toward Home was published. North Toward Home, which became a bestseller and received the prestigious Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award for nonfiction, was an autobiographical account of Morris' flight from the South. It has become revered for its tender reflections on Southern culture, particularly by other alienated expatriate Southerners who moved north but still feel drawn to their home states.

However, the Cowles family, who owned the magazine, were uneasy with the content Morris chose, which included longer articles and overtly liberal sentiments that alienated advertisers. In the midst of falling revenues, the Cowles family expressed its discontent with Morris in clear terms, causing him to resign in 1971. The son of heavy drinkers, Morris himself accelerated his drinking in his later years.

[edit] Morris returns home

In 1980, Morris moved back to his native state to be a writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. One of his books, My Dog Skip, was made into a 2000 movie starring Frankie Muniz, Diane Lane, Luke Wilson and Kevin Bacon. Morris died of a heart attack just before the movie debuted, after seeing an advance screening of the film and praising it.

He is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Yazoo City, mere steps away from the "grave" of the fictitious Witch of Yazoo, a character from one of Morris' books, Good Old Boy.

[edit] Books by Willie Morris

  • My Dog Skip
  • My Cat Spit McGee
  • Faulkner's Mississippi
  • Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood
  • The Courting of Marcus Dupree
  • New York Days
  • The Last of the Southern Girls
  • My Mississippi
  • Terrains of the Heart and Other Essays on Home
  • Ghosts of Medgar Evers
  • Homecomings
  • South Today
  • Always Stand in Against the Curve, and Other Sports Stories
  • Yazoo: Integration in a Deep-Southern Town
  • North Toward Home
  • After All, It's Only a Game
  • Prayer for the Opening of the Little League Season
  • James Jones: A Friendship
  • Taps

[edit] External links and Resources

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