Join host Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers, at 6PM, April 8, at Off Square Books. If you can’t make it in person, tune in to Rebel Radio 92.1FM. Don’t forget our rebroadcast every Saturday night at 7PM on Mississippi Public Broadcasting (90.3FM in Oxford) immediately following A Prairie Home Companion.

Nationally syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson turns her sharp reporter’s eye on herself in Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming: A Memoir (New South). In this frank, exhilarating and brave memoir, her territory ranges from memories of pre-interstate trips to visit foot- washing Baptist relatives, to young-girl fixations on the Barbie dolls of the title, to the aches of loves lost through divorce and death. (She doesn’t flinch from the facts: She married a newspaper cartoonist, got divorced, dated a man who killed himself in front of her, married for a second time to the man of her dreams and then found him dead at home, last March, four days after his heart surgery). Even such harrowing episodes are told in Johnson’s warm and winning prose.

Johnson has covered the South for over three decades as a newspaper reporter and columnist for United Press International, The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and over 50 newspapers nationwide. She is the author of several books, including America’s Faces (1987), Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz (1989) and Poor Man’s Provence: Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana (2008). Johnson grew up in Montgomery, Ala., studied journalism at Auburn University and has lived and worked in the South all of her career.

Star and Micey is a trio of Memphis musicians; Joshua Cosby, (guitar, vocals, kick drum) Geoff Smith, (bass, vocals, pump organ, Glockenspiel, various percussion), and Nick Redmond, (lead guitar, vocals, cymbals). The band’s music might be described as “soulful folk pop.” The group recently released its debut CD, Star and Micey. The band are proteges of Big Star drummer Jody Stephens and recorded their disc for Big Star’s old label, Ardent, where Stephens now serves as studio manager. Last month the group appeared at South by Southwest in Austin has part of their southern tour.

Sam Haskell is an Ole Miss graduate, and the former Worldwide Head of Television for the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills representing such stars as Bill Cosby, Ray Romano, Whoopi Goldberg, George Clooney, and Dolly Parton. His memoir, Promises I Made My Mother (Random House), spent seven weeks on the LA Times bestseller list. He has just completed a 90- city book tour which included a 10-day trip to Afghanistan to visit our soldiers there.

Mary Haskell is a former Miss Mississippi, Ole Miss graduate, and successful singer who has performed at the Kennedy Center, The White House, and with the Prague Symphony. She has starred in more than 20 TV movies and her two Christmas movies, Once Upon A Christmas and Twice Upon A Christmas are the Hallmark Channel's highest-rated Christmas movies. Her CDs include, Inspired, Power of the Cross and Just In Time For Christmas.