Ann Tweedy
WATER VALLEY – Award-winning poet and University of Mississippi law professor Ann Tweedy will be the featured reader Friday, Nov. 13, as the Hubert Creekmore Literary Society continues its reading series at Magnolia Coffee Co.
The reading begins at 7 p.m. in the Drawing Room at 428 N. Main St. It is free and open to the public.
The event coincides with Gather in the Valley, an evening of downtown shopping, art, seasonal refreshments and other activities marking the beginning of the holiday season. The celebration precedes Water Valley’s Holiday Open House on Saturday, Nov. 14, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tweedy is the author of The Body’s Alphabet and four poetry chapbooks, including Wind Through a Beak-Drilled Branch, winner of the South Dakota State Poetry Society’s 2026 annual chapbook contest.
Her other chapbooks include Beleaguered Oases, White Out and A Registry of Survival. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous literary publications, including Rattle, Literary Mama and Naugatuck River Review. She has also received nominations for three Pushcart Prizes and five Best of the Net Awards.
In addition to her literary career, Tweedy is a professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law, specializing in federal Indian law. She has represented Native American tribes as an attorney and serves as an appellate judge for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Suquamish Tribe.
A native of southeastern Massachusetts, Tweedy has spent much of her adult life on the West Coast and in the Midwest. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Hamline University and divides her time between South Dakota and Mississippi.
The Hubert Creekmore Literary Society’s reading series, founded and produced by Dawn Denham, features Mississippi writers of prose and poetry. This season includes five readings at Magnolia Coffee Co.
Doors at Magnolia Coffee Co. open at 6 p.m., with an open mic preceding Tweedy’s 7 p.m. reading and a question-and-answer session afterward. Beverages and light refreshments will be available for purchase.
The reading series will continue March 5, 2027, with New York Times bestselling novelist M.O. Walsh and Water Valley fiction writer Sean Ennis. Walsh’s novel The Big Door Prize was adapted into a television series for Apple TV.
Additional readings are scheduled April 9 with Dr. Ebony Lumumba, chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages at Jackson State University, and May 7 with Water Valley’s Grant Thompson, who will present local history through a multimedia presentation.
There is no admission charge, but donations are encouraged to support the reading series.
More information is available at creekmorelit.com and watervalley365.com.
