By Courtney McCreary. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 29)
Held every August on the Capitol grounds, the Mississippi Book Festival is a beloved event. Though only three years old, thousands of book lovers flock to the state’s largest literary lawn party every year to meet their favorite authors, add a few new books to their collections, and to be among other like-minded fans. Where else can one discuss Jesmyn Ward’s new novel with a stranger in line to buy a funnel cake?
Saturday, August 18, will be full of panels, many often occurring simultaneously. Nestled between discussions that focus on authors or themes or genre books is a panel that features a book publisher. Often neglected at this sort of event, the Mississippi Book Festival has chosen each year to highlight a different press that is bringing great books to the world. Billed as,“an inside look at the ups and downs of publishing and the relationship between a national literary publisher and two of its award-winning authors,” this year’s publishers panel will host Unbridled Books.
Unbridled Books, the brain child of Greg Michalson and Fred Ramey, began in 2003, though Michalson claims it started much earlier, when the two spent three years in graduate school. “The roots for all this go back to the days when Fred and I were graduate students together. We began arguing about what made good fiction, and we like to say that we’ve continued that conversation throughout our publishing careers together.”
L-R: Ramey, Michalson
Though a smaller press, publishing only a few titles a year and staffing a few people who work on a project to project basis, Unbridled Books titles are constant contenders for top reading lists around the country. Featuring authors like Emily St. John Mandel, Steve Yarbrough, and Elise Blackwell, Unbridled Books has a knack for discovering and nurturing talent. During their long careers in the book industry, the two co-publishers released William Gay’s debut, The Long Home and The Oxygen Man, one of Steve Yarbrough’s first novels. This makes them unique in the publishing world. It’s rare to find one small press with as many heavy-hitters on their list.
Unbridled Books has always focused on quality over quantity. It makes sense after speaking to Michalson, who, without hesitation, refers to his job as “a true privilege to work with our authors on these books.”
It’s a simple formula: Unbridled Books publishes books they love. They publish primarily fiction but have been known to release the occasional nonfiction title. It doesn’t matter what type of books they’re publishing, what matters is the story. “We’re interested in a good read that’s character driven but that also has the kind of compelling, page-turning story that readers will really care about,” says Michalson.
Joining Michalson and Ramey on the Unbridled Books and The National Literary Scene panel will be three of their authors—Elise Blackwell, author of The Lower Quarter, much-loved Mississippi Delta writer Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World, and moderator, Steve Yates, of Flowood, the author of The Legend of the Albino Farm.
L-R: Yates, Yarbrough, Blackwell
The Unbridled Books and the National Literary Scene panel will take place at 1:30 p.m. in State Capitol Room 201 H at the Mississippi Book Festival on Saturday, August 18.
Courtney McCreary is the Publicity and Promotions manager at the University Press of Mississippi. She lives and writes in Jackson, Mississippi.
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