Greenfield Farm Writers Residency is a project of the Mississippi Lab at the University of Mississippi. Design by Marlon Blackwell Architects is now complete. Construction bids go out soon. Greenfield, set to open in the summer of 2027, 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.

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. Nationwide, less than two percent of arts and culture funding supports the literary arts. 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.