Greenfield Farm Writers Residency revitalizes William Faulkner's land, supports MS writers

On old farmland 15 miles east of Oxford, structures sit in varying forms of decay in between trees. In the mid-1900s, William Faulkner raised mules and grew crops on this land.

Starting in the third quarter of 2025, Mississippi writers will walk the same land fostering their creativity in the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency.

The University of Mississippi manages this project and has owned the land since 1988. Writer and Ole Miss Professor John T. Edge, who spearheaded this project, emphasized that while the university manages this project, it will be a "statewide asset."

After Faulkner sold the film rights to his novel "The Unvanquished," he used that money and a loan to purchase over 300 acres of land on the road to New Albany, where he was born.

“So, in buying that land, he was, in essence, buying purchase to his past,” Edge said.

Edge called it an "exercise in time travel" for Faulkner. Adding to this theme of time travel was the choice to raise mules. In a time when most farmers were converting to mechanical equipment like tractors, Faulkner chose to power his crops the old-fashioned way.

The McJunkins family were farmers who did most of the actual labor on the land. Faulkner was able to observe and live a piece of the Mississippi rural life he is famous for recreating in his novels.

For Faulkner, this was a “kind of agricultural theater,” Edge said.

“So this place for Faulkner was a physical incarnation of his late-career want to engage with the agricultural world,” Edge said.

The university owns about 20 acres of this land and is currently in the process of transforming it into the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency.

“The aim is to leverage the narrative of that land,” Edge said.

There will be an advisory committee who manages applications of potential residents, each of whom will stay for an average of one to four weeks in one of four cabins. Edge said participants don’t necessarily have to be Mississippi born and raised, but they do have to have a reason to write in or about the state.

“If you’re from New York City and you want to write the great American novel about somebody in San Franciso, this isn’t your place,” Edge said. “But, if you want to immerse yourself in Mississippi, if you want to understand Mississippi better, if you want to write about this place and make sense of this place and enjoy this literary tradition that defines this place, then this is a place for you.”

Edge argues that America relies on Mississippi literature to make sense of the essence of the entire country.

“This is not just an historical phenomenon. It is today that America depends upon Mississippi writers,” Edge said. “We’re still looking to Faulkner to make sense of the imprint of enslavement in the Civil War and its aftermath on our nation. We depend — even in this month as Jesmyn Ward’s new book is published — we depend upon her to make sense of our profound and tragic and beautiful history,” Edge said.

Jesmyn Ward, who grew up in Mississippi, is famous for her novels like "Sing, Unburied, Sing" set in the fictitious town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi.

When getting inspiration for Greenfield Farm, Edge noticed a distinct lack of writers' residencies in the Deep South. Most exist in the Northeast and Northwest. Edge and his partners on the advisory committee want to bring that tradition down south.

“There’s a dearth of writers' residencies in the Deep South, especially stipend supported ones,” Edge said.

The stipend support is another feature that sets Greenfield Farm apart from other established residencies. Writers who stay in the overnight studios will receive a stipend of $1,000 a week. Edge called this funding an “instrument of equity” used to ensure writers of all financial backgrounds have the opportunity to participate.

The residency uses the term "writers" broadly and is not limited to novelists. The residency's website says, "If you make words, Greenfield Farm will serve you."

Kiese Laymon is a Jackson-born author and Greenfield Farm advisory committee member. Laymon, now a professor at Rice University, connected with Edge when he was a professor at Ole Miss a few years ago. He joined the project to create what he hopes will be an "incredible opportunity for writers of all ages in Mississippi."

Laymon said the residency will hopefully be an asset for young writers, especially given that he and the other authors on the committee didn't have similar opportunities when they became writers.

"My hope is that this can encourage young writers to see Mississippi as a place worth not just staying, but really artistically investing in," Laymon said.

As a young writer, Laymon said he would have absolutely wanted to have something like Greenfield Farm.

"I think a lot of us just backed into becoming writers because we didn't know it was possible until ... a lot of us had to leave," Laymon said. "I had to leave Mississippi to find out how to make a living as a writer."

Similar to universities combatting the "brain drain" in Mississippi which involves students leaving the state after getting an education in a search for better jobs, Greenfield Farm will create a home for Mississippi writers to come back to and stay.

"We also just want people in Mississippi to have all of the choices, which is what a lot of times we don't have in Mississippi," Laymon said.

In addition to budding creatives, the residency is in part for writers who left Mississippi and want to come home.

“If you are five generations deep in Chicago and your family left (Mississippi) because of peril or terror during the Jim Crow era, we want to find a way to bring you back for this to be a new kind of front porch from Mississippi,” Edge said.

Laymon previously worked at Longhaven Artist Residency in Tennessee, which focuses on getting writers into nature. Greenfield Farm will adopt the same practice.

"We need to actually encourage people to experience the best of our natural world," Laymon said.

Ebony Lumumba, writer and English professor at Jackson State University, joined the Greenfield Farm advisory board after Edge reached out to her with information on the idea.

“That was particularly exciting for me being a writer, being from Mississippi, to have a space to create or curate a space where writers from all over the world could come to Mississippi and be inspired by the landscape, by the people, by the spirit of the state like I always have been as a native Mississippian,” Lumumba said.

Lumumba was born in Jackson and received her doctorate from the University of Mississippi, so she is familiar with the landscape in which Greenfield Farm residents will live and work in. She said she hopes the residency will attract diverse creativity, maybe even from those who aren’t as familiar with Mississippi.

“I think it’s important that although this is a space that was previously owned by William Faulkner, that it doesn’t necessarily lend only to people who appreciate or understand or have an affinity for southern literature,” Lumumba said.

Lumumba also hopes this project will expand the boundaries of southern writing.

Because of features such as the stipends, the residency is designed for those who want to add writing to an established full-time career. The idea is that someone can take a break from their normal field and cultivate their artistic side.

So far, the project has raised $4.6 million of its $9 million goal. Most of this money comes from the University of Mississippi and various foundations. Recently, the project received a $250,000 grant from the Julia Reed Charitable Trust.

A large component of Greenfield Farm will be fostering community among its residents. Reed was a Mississippi-born journalist who died in 2020. Her name will adorn the kitchen in the gathering pavilion, a place for writers to gather several nights a week and discuss their work over dinner.

The amount of money acquired so far, Edge said, is enough for the university to greenlight the project and start advertising for architects, the pool of which will be narrowed down soon. Edge said the architecture will “reference Mississippi’s past and suggest Mississippi’s future.”

“The natural world is integrated within Mississippi’s past, but really projects into the future. We’re building an asset that will serve Mississippi for the next generation, so we want this to speak to our past, but we don’t want the past to restrict this place and the people who come here,” Edge said.

Edge said in an idealized future, the rest of the funds will come from outside the state, particularly from “people who departed this place and still feel a deep responsibility to this place.”

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Greenfield Farm residency supports MS creatives on Faulkner's land