W. Ralph Eubanks

In 1980, following completion of his master's degree, Eubanks began his career in publishing, working with the American Geophysical Union as a copy editor. He remained with the organization through 1984. In 1989, he began serving on the editorial staff of Hemisphere Publishing, where he remained for two years. As Managing Editor, he oversaw the production of over 75 books and scholarly journals. In 1990, he began working with the American Psychological Association, where he served as the Director of Book Publishing for five years. In 1995, he joined the staff of the Library of Congress as the Director of Publishing.[1][3][4]

In May 2013 he was announced as the new editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review.[5] Eubanks left VQR in February 2015, after editing six print issues, when he was told that his contract would not be renewed. Ron Charles, editor of The Washington Post's Book World, had praised VQR's "refreshing range of voices" under Eubanks's leadership in a January 5, 2015, article. A January 9, 2015 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education noted that Eubanks's departure "may provide lessons about how, and even whether, universities should manage their sponsorship of literary journals."[6]

While Eubanks was working with the American Psychological Association, he simultaneously served as a faculty advisor for Howard University's summer book publishing program. He remained with the program from 1992 to 1994.[3] From 1994 until 2002, he served as an advisor and adjunct professor on staff at the University of Virginia, where he worked with the Publishing and Communications Institute. While at the Institute, he taught a publishing overview class "The World of Publishing," a class called "The Business of Publishing," and was a guest lecturer in the University of Virginia's Summer Publishing Institute.[7] In 2009, he taught a class on writing the memoir in the MFA program at George Mason University. From January through December 2016, Eubanks served as the Eudora Welty Visiting Professor in Southern Studies at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. While at Millsaps, Eubanks taught a creative writing course on "Crafting the Personal Essay," as well as the literature classes "Photography and Literature," "Civil Rights and Literature," "The African American Memoir," and "On Faith and Fiction." Since 2017, Eubanks has been Visiting Professor of Southern Studies and English at the University of Mississippi.[8]

Books

Eubanks is the author of two memoirs of his life and family. His 2003 book, entitled Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi's Dark Past, was recognized as one of the best nonfiction books of the year by Washington Post literary critic Jonathan Yardley. In 2009, Eubanks' memoir, The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South was published by HarperCollins. The historical biography takes a look at American identity and race relations, beginning with his maternal grandparents and presented in context with contemporary issues undergone by three generations of his family. In March 2021, A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through A Real and Imagined Literary Landscape was published by Timber Press.[9] In the Georgia Review, KaToya Ellis Fleming wrote "Reading A Place Like Mississippi is as much a visceral experience as it is an intellectual one, even down to the supple feel of the pages and the soft, elegant texture of the book in your hands."[10]

Journalism

Eubanks has written numerous newspaper and magazine articles, primarily focusing on academia and race relations. On January 1, 2006, he wrote an article for The Washington Post, entitled "DNA Is Only One Way to Spell Identity".[11] On June 13, 2006, his article "Still Learning From Dad" was published in The Washington Post.[12] His article "At Ole Miss, a Valedictory to the Old South" was published by The Washington Post on September 21, 2008.[13]

Eubanks has also written articles for Preservation Magazine, published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. His articles include "A Southern Awakening", published in the September/October 2003 issue;[14] and "Separate But Unequal", published in the July/August 2005 issue.[15]

He also wrote an article on affirmative action for The American Scholar.[16] Articles for the Chicago Tribune include "A Trip Back Home for a Lesson in Justice".[17] Other works include "The Land the Internet Era Forgot" in WIRED, "Atticus Finch Confronted What the South Couldn't" in TIME, "Mississippi, The Two-Flag State" in The New Yorker, and "Color Lines" in The American Scholar.

In addition to such articles, Eubanks has written book reviews for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. These include reviews for My Generation by William Styron,[18] Down to the Crossroads by Aram Goudsouzian [19]Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon by Scott E. Casper,[20] Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese,[21] and Them by Nathan McCall.[22] He also reviewed the book A Father's Law, written by Richard Wright, which was unfinished at the time of Wright's death in 1960. In 2008, Wright's daughter, Julia, finished the book and published it posthumously in his honor, on what would have been his 100th birthday.[23][24]

Eubanks has appeared in radio interviews on race relations for National Public Radio. In 2004, he appeared on All Things Considered, where he spoke about the 1964 murder of three American civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, whose deaths were attributed to members of the Ku Klux Klan.[25]

On July 27, 2009, Eubanks appeared as a guest on Talk of the Nation, speaking on race relations and police conduct in the aftermath of the 2009 arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[26]