Greenfield Farm Writers Residency, a project of the Mississippi Lab at the University of Mississippi, now in design with construction soon to begin, will be a new front porch for the Deep South. Set on William Faulkner’s onetime mule farm, this will be the first significant infrastructure investment our nation makes to grow and amplify the power of Mississippi narratives to make positive American change.

More than 300 artist residencies operate across the nation, serving creative people as humanities laboratories. Most cluster on the east coast and west coast. The Deep South in general and Mississippi in particular lack fully-funded and stipend-supported writers residencies. This is a problem, for authors depend on residencies to gain isolation and focus, and our nation depends on Mississippi authors to relate the big American truths that Faulkner called life’s verities.