The Starkville Public Library and Mississippi State’s Mitchell Memorial Library have several events planned for this week to kick off National Library Week.
The Cotton District LitFest, sponsored by the library and the Starkville Area Arts Council, will be Thursday and Friday, with events at the public library and on campus.
Organizers said they developed the festival to allow people in Starkville to meet others who are interested in literature and to give them something usually offered only in larger cities.
“The Starkville Area Arts Council sponsors the art festival that includes all forms of art, including the literary arts,” Armando De La Cruz, organizer for the Cotton District Art Festival, said. “The literary festival is just one aspect of the arts festival.”
“LitFest offers a local arena for people interested in reading and writing to get together with other people with those same interests,” Debbie Allen, LitFest committee chairman, said.
Six events, two of which are on campus, mark the first LitFest, which begins with registration at 11 a.m. Thursday.
In addition to LitFest, the MSU library has four events planned to celebrate National Library Week.
“It is not necessary to register; we would like anyone who is interested to attend,” Allen said.
The MSU library is holding an awards ceremony today at 10 a.m. for student workers, faculty and staff to recognize someone who has given time and creativity to the library.
The Black Voices Choir will be performing in the Mitchell Memorial Library Wednesday at noon.
At 2 p.m., a creative writing class will share its work at the library.
Mississippi author Rose Markman Marshall will present “Zora Neale Hurston” Thursday at 9 a.m. at Mitchell Memorial Library and at the public library at 2 p.m. Friday for LitFest.
At 1 p.m. Thursday author, Robert St. John will present a seminar, “Men are From Mars: Women Want to Send Us Back,” at the public library.
St. John is an author and a humor columnist from Mississippi.
Paul LaViolette will speak at “How to Get Published” Thursday at 2:30 p.m. in the John Grisham Room. LaViolette is an author and publisher from Waveland, Miss.
A reading of “Daisy May and the Miracle Man” by Fannie Flagg will be in Mitchell Memorial Library Thursday at 3 p.m.
Friday the events begin at 9 a.m. with “Coffee and … A Good Book” at the public library Sidewalk Caf with presenter, Harry Freeman. Freeman is an author from the French Quarter in New Orleans, La.
In this session, the community reading program, Starkville Reads: One Book, will feature Summerland.
Poetry Hour with author Ann Wiltrout will begin at 10:30 a.m. at the Sidewalk Caf, where Wiltrout will read poetry.
“Brown Bag Lunch and a History of Cookbooks” will begin at noon Friday in the Swalm Conference Center in the Swalm Chemical Engineering building with Wanda Dodson. Dodson is a nutrition professor interested in dishes from around the world.
“National Library Week celebrates reading in general,” Lyle Tate, National Library Week committee chairman for MSU, said. “We try to promote activities that go on year-round, and get people into the library,” he added.
Tate said that the activities planned are a way of getting people into the library and letting them know why they might want to go.
“We want people to come even when they do not have to do research,” he said.