Montgomery, AL (05/17/2024) – On Thursday, May 30, at 12:00pm CT, author Jennifer Horne will present a book talk on her work, Odyssey of a Wandering Mind: The Strange Tale of Sara Mayfield, Author, at the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH). The program will be presented in-person in the ADAH’s Joseph M. Farley Alabama Power Auditorium. It will also be livestreamed through the ADAH’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. Admission is free.

Horne's book tells the story of Sara Mayfield, a brilliant but troubled author and inventor who struggled against the conventions of gender, class, family, and ultimately of sanity, yet survived to define a creative life of her own. Throughout her life, Mayfield kept journals, wrote fiction, and produced thousands of letters while nursing the ambition that had driven her since childhood: to write and publish books. In Odyssey of a Wandering Mind, Horne draws on years of research and an intimate understanding of this vast personal archives to sensitively render Mayfield’s struggle to move through the world as the person she was—and her ultimate success in surviving to define the terms of her story.

Horne served as the twelfth Poet Laureate of Alabama from 2017-2021. Raised in Arkansas and a longtime resident of Alabama, Horne is a writer and editor of prose, poetry, and fiction who has taught creative writing in a variety of settings, in university, conference, and prison classrooms abroad and close to home.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase in the ADAH’s Museum Store. A recording of the program will be available on the ADAH’s YouTube channel shortly after the presentation. For additional information, contact Alex Colvin at alex.colvin@archives.alabama.gov or (334) 353-4689. 

 

The Alabama Department of Archives and History is the state’s government-records repository, a special-collections library and research facility, and home to the Museum of Alabama, the state history museum. It is located in downtown Montgomery, directly across Washington Avenue from the State Capitol. The ADAH is open Monday through Saturday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. The EBSCO Research Room is closed on Mondays. To learn more, visit www.archives.alabama.gov or call (334) 242-4364. 

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Alabama Department of Archives & History 

624 Washington Ave., Montgomery, AL 36130