Mississippi Expat: Katy Simpson Smith
"I wouldn’t have been so bold as to pursue a career as a novelist if I hadn’t grown up in a place so wholly accepting of writers, and so rich with characters."
What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Today we hear from novelist and historian Katy Simpson Smith, whose fourth novel The Weeds was published this spring.
Where are you from?
I was born in Jackson. My first two years were spent toddling around faculty housing at Millsaps College, and in subsequent years, I was raised by my parents and Jackson Public Schools.
When did you move to New Orleans and why did you move there?
I moved to New Orleans in 2011, which was my first opportunity after college and graduate school to choose a city to live in. I’d always been drawn to New Orleans, thanks to a childhood of day trips to the aquarium; I saw it as a cultural mecca, an architectural marvel, and a progressive Deep South bubble. I moved there without a job but determined to make it work, like those young people in novels who move to New York with a suitcase and a dream.
Mississippi is a complicated setting for home, given its thorny histories, but there’s a knownness about it—something about speech patterns, gossip networks, the smell of pines and clay.
What does “home” mean to you? How does Mississippi fit into that definition?
I think of home as the place where one can set aside one’s defenses. (I know that’s not true for many people’s homes.) Home, for me, is an unburdening, a settling into familiar soil, that feeling of being held. Mississippi is a complicated setting for home, given its thorny histories, but there’s a knownness about it—something about speech patterns, gossip networks, the smell of pines and clay. When I’m back, I feel buttressed. And maybe it’s not that Mississippi allows for a full authenticity (as a woman, I still have plenty of feelings not entirely safe to express), but that I know exactly what I can put down and what I still need to hold onto in order to survive. More importantly, the community within which I was raised—let’s call it the little-m mississippi inside the larger Mississippi—will always, always be there for me, and I haven’t felt that safety anywhere else.
What do you miss most about Mississippi?
A genuine interest in personal history. Rhythms of language. The feeling of being adored. (Mississippi is like a mother; no one will ever love you as much, though also no one has the same capacity to hurt you.)
How have you cultivated community in New Orleans? Do you still feel rooted to Mississippi?
I’ve found beautiful communities in New Orleans, particularly among fellow writers, and my strategy for joining them involves all the tools I was taught growing up: being bold, asking questions, sharing vulnerabilities. While it’s a city I can’t imagine leaving, I’ll always be a Mississippian first. Thank goodness my parents remain in Jackson, so I can still come home.
What’s the weirdest question or assumption you’ve encountered about Mississippi (or about you as a Mississippian) by someone who’s never been there?
I once had a student from the North who read the axiom about Southern literature’s reliance on dead mules, and she genuinely wanted to know if we all had donkeys.
Racism isn’t what makes Mississippi special; it’s what makes it American.
How has being from Mississippi affected your identity and your life’s path?
I think it’s certainly shaped my path as a writer—I wouldn’t have been so bold as to pursue a career as a novelist if I hadn’t grown up in a place so wholly accepting of writers, and so rich with characters. I think being a Mississippian has also instilled in me a lasting identification with underdogs—there are the underdogs we as a state have continually attempted to suppress, and there’s the underdog that is our state as a whole. Living in Mississippi is a lesson in advocacy; good things come only if you fight for them. Over the years, this has sharpened my voice.
What is something that you’ve come to understand about Mississippi by living elsewhere?
Racism isn’t what makes Mississippi special; it’s what makes it American. Living elsewhere, I’ve been able to better discern a certain quality we have—a kind of generous insularity—that feels like the steel our double-edged sword is made of. It leads both to deep liberality (if you need help, then you are my neighbor) and to paralyzing fear (if you aren’t my neighbor, how can I love you?). I don’t know how we resolve those impulses, but if we don’t, there is no path forward.
I think being a Mississippian has also instilled in me a lasting identification with underdogs—there are the underdogs we as a state have continually attempted to suppress, and there’s the underdog that is our state as a whole.
Have you ever thought about moving back? What would need to happen in order for you to move back to Mississippi?
I had the great privilege of teaching at Millsaps for a few semesters as the Eudora Welty Chair for Southern Literature, and though I was still commuting from New Orleans during that time, I could envision a life in Jackson as an adult; the social networks are still there, the arts communities, the coffee shops, the museums, the river… I’ve also had beautiful experiences in other parts of the state, from Oxford down to the coast; there’s always a little pull in my heart when I see a house for sale.
What would it take to move back? The twin answers are probably infrastructure and politics, which are increasingly the same answer. (And which honestly don’t feel much safer in Louisiana.) But I desperately want these states to realize that supporting their citizens—affording them clean water, social services, public education, rights to their own bodies—isn’t charity; it’s an investment in the very identity of the state. We’re all on the same small raft.
What do you wish the rest of the country understood about Mississippi?
I think the most damaging assumption that gets made again and again is that Mississippi is a politically conservative, racist, misogynist, anti-queer state. There is a gaping divide between a legislature and the people it claims to serve, and to dismiss a state based on the decisions of 174 politicians (85% of whom are men) is to ignore the long history of Mississippi activism, of progressivism, of art-making, of good-trouble-making, and to ignore the pressing needs of actual citizens: Black people, transgender people, pregnant people, immigrants, children, the working class, the visionaries. Mississippi is hugely diverse; we aren’t a caricature of an angry white man’s face.
But I desperately want these states to realize that supporting their citizens—affording them clean water, social services, public education, rights to their own bodies—isn’t charity; it’s an investment in the very identity of the state. We’re all on the same small raft.
Do you have a favorite Mississippi writer, artist, or musician who you think everyone needs to know about?
One of the beautiful things about our writers is that they are well-known; I don’t need to preach Kiese Laymon or Jesmyn Ward or Natasha Trethewey to anyone. The only thing I would add is that I have yet to meet a Mississippi writer who isn’t also a beautiful human, and I think everyone should know that.
If you had one billion dollars to invest in Mississippi, how would you spend your money?
I would give it all to the public schools. Education is a form of freedom, and is the first lever of justice.
What or who do you want to shamelessly promote? (It can absolutely be a project you’re working on, or something you are involved in.)
Let me shamelessly promote Write for Mississippi, which is a statewide creative writing project based in public high schools that I started in 2016; it’s gone through three year-long iterations, resulting in three beautiful books of student work, and has involved dozens of Mississippi writers working closely with over 1500 students. I’m looking forward to developing another project soon (and/or finding someone interested in taking the lead!), but I want to use it as an example of the power of the people: when systems fail us, we fall back on mutual aid. That aid can take so many forms, including something as simple (and as serious) as telling a young person their story matters.