Willie: The Life of Willie Morris
FINALIST FOR THE 2016 NONFICTION AWARD OF THE MISSISSIPPI INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS
A fresh look at the life of a revered Southern writer and editor
With over fifty photographs
From the University Press of Mississippi
In 2000, readers voted Willie Morris Mississippi's favorite nonfiction author of the millennium. After conducting over fifty interviews and combing through over eighty boxes of papers in the archives of the University of Mississippi, many of which had never been seen before by researchers, Teresa Nicholas provides new perspectives on a Mississippi writer and editor who changed journalism and redefined what being Southern could mean. More than fifty photographs--some published here for the first time--enhance the exploration.
Praise for Willie
“Willie Morris was a true force in publishing. He had an eye for talent and an incredible gift for nurturing writers. Teresa Nicholas’s biography draws a portrait of Morris as both a man of his time and as a force for change in a vibrant and turbulent period of American letters.”
--Gay Talese, author of A Writer's Life and NYT journalist
"I had the good fortune to know Willie Morris, and Teresa Nicholas has done a fabulous job of vividly rendering his larger than life personality in these pages. Like its subject, her book is both clear-eyed and generous. If Willie were around to read it, I'm convinced he'd say 'That's me.'"
--Steve Yarbrough, author of The Realm of Last Chances and other works
"Willie: The Life of Willie Morris is a poignant biography that chronicles Morris’s life-long love affair with the American South and his beloved Yazoo City, Mississippi. Teresa Nicholas shows how the celebrated talker, editor, and writer first wrestles with expatriation, then returns home as a literary hero. Nicholas eloquently captures Morris’s life and his impressive literary canon of twenty-three books."
--William Ferris, author of The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists and other works
“In a fine, honest biography graced by many poignant photographs, Teresa Nicholas follows Willie Morris’s rich life from his childhood in Yazoo City to the rarefied air of New York’s literary circles, then through years of loss and melancholy before he returned triumphantly to Mississippi to become ‘a most treasured son’ of the state.”
--Curtis Wilkie, author of The Fall of the House of Zeus
Sampling of Print Reviews for Willie
Other print reviews have appeared in townhall.com ("Willie"), and the Yazoo Herald (editorial page).
Willie Morris wrote like an angel, drank like a fish, and edited with real flare and conviction....He gazes out from the cover of Willie, Teresa Nicholas's slender biography. He is 28, hair neatly combed, boyish and slightly moonfaced, with an ineffably sweet sadness in his gaze, as if he could see the sorrow to come. Wall Street Journal
"Remarkably, Ms. Nicholas tells Willie's compelling story in 127 pages, setting what I wish were a new standard for biography." Ellen T. White, the East Hampton Star
"This efficient collection of priceless photos, chronology and stories of Willie's remarkably accomplished, but seemingly short time with us is compact and precise, inspired, and a delight to read."
--Malcolm White, the Clarion-Ledger
"In Willie, Teresa Nicholas, a fellow Yazooan, does a splendid job of stitching [Willie's] many lives together into a seamless whole. Willie is a fine piece of journalism. Willie would be proud."
--Jim Ewing, special to the Clarion-Ledger
"This biography of Morris is written with empathy as well as with honesty and the result of Nicholas' work is a very pleasing visit with an old and dear friend."
--Sid Salter, columnist for the Clarion-Ledger
"In this sensitively drawn, impeccably researched bio, fellow Mississippian Nicholas reclaims the legacy of writer's writer and Southern icon Willie Morris." Swarthmore College Bulletin
Praise for Willie
“Willie Morris was a true force in publishing. He had an eye for talent and an incredible gift for nurturing writers. Teresa Nicholas’s biography draws a portrait of Morris as both a man of his time and as a force for change in a vibrant and turbulent period of American letters.”
--Gay Talese, author of A Writer's Life and NYT journalist
"I had the good fortune to know Willie Morris, and Teresa Nicholas has done a fabulous job of vividly rendering his larger than life personality in these pages. Like its subject, her book is both clear-eyed and generous. If Willie were around to read it, I'm convinced he'd say 'That's me.'"
--Steve Yarbrough, author of The Realm of Last Chances and other works
"Willie: The Life of Willie Morris is a poignant biography that chronicles Morris’s life-long love affair with the American South and his beloved Yazoo City, Mississippi. Teresa Nicholas shows how the celebrated talker, editor, and writer first wrestles with expatriation, then returns home as a literary hero. Nicholas eloquently captures Morris’s life and his impressive literary canon of twenty-three books."
--William Ferris, author of The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists and other works
“In a fine, honest biography graced by many poignant photographs, Teresa Nicholas follows Willie Morris’s rich life from his childhood in Yazoo City to the rarefied air of New York’s literary circles, then through years of loss and melancholy before he returned triumphantly to Mississippi to become ‘a most treasured son’ of the state.”
--Curtis Wilkie, author of The Fall of the House of Zeus
Sampling of Print Reviews for Willie
Other print reviews have appeared in townhall.com ("Willie"), and the Yazoo Herald (editorial page).
Willie Morris wrote like an angel, drank like a fish, and edited with real flare and conviction....He gazes out from the cover of Willie, Teresa Nicholas's slender biography. He is 28, hair neatly combed, boyish and slightly moonfaced, with an ineffably sweet sadness in his gaze, as if he could see the sorrow to come. Wall Street Journal
"Remarkably, Ms. Nicholas tells Willie's compelling story in 127 pages, setting what I wish were a new standard for biography." Ellen T. White, the East Hampton Star
"This efficient collection of priceless photos, chronology and stories of Willie's remarkably accomplished, but seemingly short time with us is compact and precise, inspired, and a delight to read."
--Malcolm White, the Clarion-Ledger
"In Willie, Teresa Nicholas, a fellow Yazooan, does a splendid job of stitching [Willie's] many lives together into a seamless whole. Willie is a fine piece of journalism. Willie would be proud."
--Jim Ewing, special to the Clarion-Ledger
"This biography of Morris is written with empathy as well as with honesty and the result of Nicholas' work is a very pleasing visit with an old and dear friend."
--Sid Salter, columnist for the Clarion-Ledger
"In this sensitively drawn, impeccably researched bio, fellow Mississippian Nicholas reclaims the legacy of writer's writer and Southern icon Willie Morris." Swarthmore College Bulletin