Book Banter Featuring Lauren Rhoades
September 3 @ 6:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Join us for a lively conversation with Lauren Rhoades, a writer, editor and grantmaker whose debut book, Split the Baby was released in 2025. Host, Rayna Nielsen will talk with Lauren about her connection to the south, her memoir, her upcoming projects and more.
Watch the live stream on YouTube Thursday, September 4 at 6pm central.
“…Split the Baby is an ethically generous memoir, told with compassion and grace, in which Rhoades shows us what it feels like to inhabit a body divided.” – Mary Miller, author of Biloxi and Always Happy Hour
Lauren Rhoades retells her experience of growing up caught between two conflicting homes run by equally strong women: a fervently Catholic stepmother and a deeply sensitive Jewish mother.
Ultimately, this debut memoir-in-pieces is a thoughtful story of learning to become whole again.
Lauren Rhoades
Lauren Rhoades is a writer, editor, and grantmaker living in Jackson, Mississippi. Originally from Denver, Colorado, Lauren has served with AmeriCorps, started Mississippi’s first fermentation company, and helmed the Eudora Welty House & Garden. She is now director of grants at the Mississippi Arts Commission and a host of MPB’s The Mississippi Arts Hour. In 2022, Lauren founded Rooted Magazine, an online publication dedicated to telling unfiltered stories about what it means to call Mississippi home. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the Mississippi University for Women. Split the Baby is her first book.
