A Writer's Guide to Oxford, Mississippi
Oxford's literary life gathers on the Courthouse Square, where Square Books runs its stores and readings and City Grocery has been open since 1992. On the Ole Miss campus, the J.D. Williams Library is open to the public, and its special collections hold Faulkner and Welty materials beside the Blues Archive. Thacker Mountain Radio pairs author readings with music, and the Oxford Conference for the Book meets each spring. Novelists and poets work at the same tables and in the same reading rooms as faculty finishing a monograph.
Libraries · Bookstores · Places to Write · Places to Eat · Writing Community · Journal · Awards and Grants · Printing and Binding · When the Manuscript Is Ready
Libraries
Bring a photo ID if you plan to work in the university's special collections.
The county's public library belongs to the First Regional Library system. It is open daily, with evening hours Monday through Thursday and afternoon hours only on Sundays.
Williams holds the university's main collection, and it is open to the public. The shelves run from books and periodicals to government publications, microforms, and maps. There are public computers and free wireless access.
Anyone may use the collections after completing a researcher registration form. Faulkner scholars will want the materials from his personal library, digitized with Rowan Oak; Eudora Welty materials and the Blues Archive are here as well. Nothing circulates. Group tours and workshops are offered when time permits.
Independent Bookstores
All four stores belong to Square Books and sit on the Courthouse Square, so one walk around it covers them.
Square Books is an independent general bookstore. Its strengths are literary fiction, Southern fiction, and history.
Off Square is the event space for Square Books, and most of its author readings, talks, and signings take place here. The shelves hold art, architecture, cooking, and travel books, along with bargain and used books and magazines.
Rare Square sells collectible, vintage, and first-edition books across a broad price range. It is open Tuesday through Saturday.
Square Books Jr. is the children's and young-adult store, with storytime on Wednesday and Saturday mornings and book clubs for children. Picture-book and YA writers can look through its Junior's Dozen list.
Places to Write
Velvet Ditch is open Monday through Saturday only, so plan Sunday sessions around the other two.
The coffee bar is upstairs at Square Books. In fair weather, take your cup out to the balcony over the courthouse.
High Point's café on Old Taylor Road opens early every day. The Visit Oxford coffee guide calls it a good place to study, with a large dining room and a patio.
Velvet Ditch is a café and small-batch roastery founded in 2021. It serves breakfast and lunch and keeps daytime hours Monday through Saturday.
Places to Eat
John Currence's City Grocery has been open since the spring of 1992, with a bar upstairs. Garden & Gun calls it a favorite haunt of Barry Hannah and Larry Brown and names Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennelly, and Michael Farris Smith among its regulars. It serves lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday.
This is the original Big Bad Breakfast, open seven days for breakfast, brunch, and lunch. Garden & Gun notes that the name nods to Larry Brown's story collection Big Bad Love and that the Secret History omelette refers to Donna Tartt's novel.
Proud Larry's has been family owned since 1993. It serves hand-tossed pizza and burgers and has live music most nights. Warren Zevon and Elvis Costello have played here.
Writing Community
Literary Organizations
Most of Oxford's literary calendar repeats each year, so check each site for the current dates.
Square Books was founded in 1979. Beyond its readings, it runs book clubs and Signed at Square Books, a program of books signed by visiting authors.
Thacker Mountain is a live radio show from the Square in Oxford, hosted by Jim Dees. Each week it pairs author readings with music. Its Oxford shows are staged at venues such as the Powerhouse, and the show has a membership program.
Each spring the Center for the Study of Southern Culture brings writers and scholars together with editors, agents, booksellers, and readers, with Square Books among its partners. Expect author readings and panels, including sessions on the publishing industry. A Children's Book Festival is part of it, and events run at Off Square Books and the Overby Center on campus.
The University of Mississippi runs this conference on William Faulkner through its Division of Outreach and Continuing Education. Past programs have paired keynotes and panels with Teaching Faulkner sessions, regional tours, and events at Rowan Oak. Some panelists have come from a call for papers.
Oxford's arts council was founded in 1975 and presents programming in and around Oxford, from Theatre Oxford productions to Thacker Mountain Radio. For a launch or reading of your own, the Powerhouse is one of the event spaces it books.
The Mississippi Book Festival is free and is held each year in and around the State Capitol in Jackson. Authors appear in hour-long panels and signings. Self-published authors sell their books in Authors Alley, and independent bookstores from the region line Booksellers Row. Panel videos and podcasts stay online in its archive.
For Faculty and Researchers
If your book is about the South, start at Barnard Observatory.
The center studies and teaches about the American South from its office in Barnard Observatory. It organizes the Oxford Conference for the Book and the SouthTalks speaker series, and its radio work includes Highway 61. The Southern Foodways Alliance, one of its institutes, publishes Gravy. Its documentary studies take in film, photography, and oral history.
eGrove, the university's institutional repository, gives free online access to the work of University of Mississippi researchers. Readers anywhere can open its open-access journals, theses and dissertations, and conference materials.
The state humanities council is based in Jackson. It makes grants to nonprofits for public humanities programs, including oral histories and film, radio, or online productions. Its Speakers Bureau offers free talks by historians, writers, and storytellers, and the council presents the Public Humanities Awards.
A Journal Edited in Oxford
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We will ensure that the final draft you receive from us is completely ready to publish or submit. We work with you until it is ready or refund your payment in full.
Read the journal's author instructions on the Springer site before you format your references.
The Journal of Experimental Criminology publishes experimental and quasi-experimental research in criminology and criminal justice that informs crime and justice policy, along with systematic reviews. Its editor-in-chief, Wesley G. Jennings, is at the University of Mississippi. Preparing an article for the Journal of Experimental Criminology
Awards, Grants, and Fellowships
For Mississippi Writers
Most of these programs are for Mississippi writers, so read the residency rules first.
The Mississippi Arts Commission gives competitive fellowships to Mississippi artists working at a high standard of artistic merit. They are awarded in the commission's annual grant cycle.
Individual Project Grants fund projects organized by or for a single artist. Mini-Grants can cover travel and registration for a workshop or conference, or promotional materials.
The Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, a member-supported nonprofit, has honored Mississippi artists since 1980. Its literary categories run from fiction and poetry to life writing and youth literature. Works are entered by nomination.
The Mississippi Library Association has given these awards since 1987 for a recent book in adult fiction, adult nonfiction, or youth categories. Living authors qualify if they were born in Mississippi or have lived there at least five consecutive years. MLA members make the nominations.
The University of Mississippi's Department of Writing and Rhetoric gives these annual awards in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for writing about the American South. Winners are celebrated in Oxford during the Oxford Conference for the Book.
For Students and Researchers
Students can find scholarships and campus writing prizes on our sister site, Editors For Students.
Our sister site gathers grants and writing resources for Ole Miss students on one page.
Printing and Binding
Off the Grid Editing offers book printing and binding at competitive rates. We handle layout, cover design, and print-ready files once your manuscript is edited. See our book publishing and printing services. Local printers and binders in Oxford, Mississippi are listed below.
The UPS Store makes black-and-white and color copies up to 11x17. It can coil-bind and laminate a document, and it handles poster and architectural printing.
FedEx Office prints and binds proposals and manuals, with cover and specialty-paper options. Most orders are ready the same day.
When the Manuscript Is Ready
Off the Grid Editing has edited books and scholarship since 2002.
Publishing Scholarship
For a monograph, an edited collection, or a revised dissertation headed to a university press: dissertation to book editing, our guides to academic press requirements, English language editing for researchers, and journal article editing.
Publishing Fiction, Memoir, and Poetry
For a novel, a story collection, a memoir, or a book of poems: fiction and creative nonfiction editing, memoir and biography editing, developmental editing, and our guides to trade and literary publishers.
Every manuscript can also go through copy editing, line editing, or proofreading. The book editing services page compares all four levels.
- Tracking Source Material: Best Practices for Archival Citations in History and Humanities
- Seamlessly Integrating Block Quotations in Literary and Cultural Analysis
- Crafting a Book Proposal That Academic Publishers Cannot Ignore
- Condensing 200 Pages Into 25: Strategies for Extracting a Journal Article from a Dissertation
- Writing for the Peer Reviewer: Anticipating and Addressing Methodological Criticisms
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Off the Grid Editing. Places and links checked November 2026.
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