Jesmyn Ward is a long way away from the environment she writes about, yet she is lauded as a southern author with the ability to capture the essence of her home. Ward, who is currently entering her second year as a Stegner Fellow at Stanford, is working on her second novel about the residents of a rural southern town based on her own home of DeLisle, Mississippi (the namesake of the DeLisle twins in Ward’s debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds).
Ward talked to Fiction Writers Review about the development of her second novel, which, reflecting the family community inherent in small southern towns, is once again set in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage and revolves around characters introduced in Where The Line Bleeds. Ward also discussed the many stereotypes facing southern writers, particularly one who is southern, black, and a woman.
