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W. Ralph Eubanks — photo by Ethan Payne
Helen Graeber Overstreet of Oxford, Mississippi, right, holds a photo of her late mother, Helen Rebecca "Becky" Phillips Graeber, who was a lifelong lover of books, art, entertaining and cooking. Also pictured is Helen Rebecca Cornelius, Overstreet's daughter who is an interior designer. Photo courtesy of UM Development
Greenfield Farm Gift Celebrates a Family of Readers
“I met with the leaders of MacDowell in New Hampshire, our nation’s oldest artist residency,” Edge said. “Readers will be your donors, they told me, people who’ve enjoyed success and have depended on books and authors to introduce them to new ideas, new perspectives, new worlds.”
Greenfield Farm Writer’s Residency will be built on a 20.4-acre site between Oxford and New Albany, Mississippi, once owned by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner. The latest gift to Greenfield Farm — $100,000 from UM alumna and Oxford entrepreneur Helen Graeber Overstreet — is a reader’s gift, honoring a family legacy of readers from three generations of women.
Overstreet’s mother, the late Helen Rebecca Phillips Graeber, known to her friends as “Becky,” was a lifelong lover of books, art, entertaining and cooking. In the last years of her life before she passed away in 2022, Becky Graeber lived in a vibrant assisted living community, where one of her closest friends was Edge’s father, John Thomas Edge.
“John T’s father and my mother shared a love of reading and would often talk about books together. They became very close,” Overstreet said. “She was an avid reader her entire life. My mom, more than any other teacher in my life, instilled in me how important reading is. So, in a way, this gift to Greenfield Farm is how I honor her.”
Overstreet’s gift also honors her daughter, Helen Rebecca Cornelius. It was Cornelius, an artist and graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, who introduced her mother to Greenfield Farm in 2024 during its Plein Air Invitational. The day did not go as intended…
Exhibits, Lectures Highlight Faulkner’s Greenfield Farm
This summer, two exhibits and a lecture series at the University of Mississippi will tell the story of Greenfield Farm, which was once William Faulkner's mule farm and will soon become the state's first writers residency.
Over the past year, photographer and documentarian Thad Lee has chronicled Greenfield Farm, a plot of land 15 miles northeast of Oxford that was once home to the Nobel Prize-winning author's livestock. Before welcoming its first group of new writers next year, the Mississippi Lab aims to highlight the farm's past with two exhibits and a lecture series that focus on Lee's work…
Ibrahim Williams reads the winning entry on stage during the Double Decker Festival in Oxford, MS. Photo courtesy of Carly Wiseman.
Congratulations to the 2026 Micro Memoir Finalists
“Stories That Pass Through Here” by Ibrahim Williams, Winner
“How I Found My Favorite Liquor Store” by Shirley Gray, Runner-up
“Fourth and long” by Sujith Ramachandran, Honorable Mention
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Building for the Arts grant eclipses $5 million fundraising mark for project.
by Marvis Herring
02.11.2026 -
The mule farm hosted their last open invitational before construction begins on their writers’ residency.
by P.B. Jernigan, The Daily Mississippian
10.31.2025 -
An emerging writer's residency revives Faulkner's farm for a new generation of Southern voices.
by Jordon Lahaye Fontenot, Country Roads
10.28.2025 -
Plans for the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency, a retreat-style home for 40-50 writers per year on William Faulkner’s old mule farm in north Mississippi, are moving forward.
by Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today
09.09.2025 -
Photographer Thad Lee to record the farm through the seasons.
by Clara Turnage
04.21.2025 -
Lewises Commit Gift to Greenfield Farm Writers Residency
by Tina H. Hahn
02.10.2025 -
Donors, state legislature provide resources for Greenfield Farm Writers Residency at UM
by Tina H. Hahn
10.22.2024 -
Mississippi Lab hosts second annual Plein Air Invitational painting competition
by Tina H. Hahn
05.28.2024 -
OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi has selected the award-winning firm Marlon Blackwell Architects, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, to design its Greenfield Farm Writers Residency. The Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation also has provided a $2 million grant to launch the effort.
by Tina H. Hahn
05.28.2024 -
The Greenfield Farm Writers Residency — being developed by the University of Mississippi on a mule farm once owned by author William Faulkner — would have been a haven for the late Julia Reed, an author, columnist and speaker known for explaining Mississippi to the world and Mississippi to itself.
By Tina H. Hahn and staff, UM Development
09.22.2023 -
Nine artists from across Mississippi will soon converge on what was once William Faulkner's mule farm to depict the landscape in a "plein air" painting competition.
by Kevin Bain (UM)
09.11.2023 -
OXFORD, Miss. – A new University of Mississippi project aims to create a retreat-style writer's residency that will afford 50-plus writers a year the time and space to imagine and execute big projects.
by Erin Garrett
04.24.2023