July 22nd
6-8 PM
Powerhouse
Please join the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council and the Oxford-Lafayette County Economic Development Foundation for a Big Bad Business workshop: "Side Hustle to Small Business: Growing Your Small Business into a Full-time Gig."
Come hear full-time entrepreneurs, Earl Dismuke, Eliot Parker, Michelle Rounsaville, and Jared Foster, explain how they grew their hustles into full-fledged small businesses in the creative economy. Light refreshments and networking to follow. Free and open to the public.
Earl Dismuke
Earl Dismuke is a Mississippi artist. He graduated in 2007 from the University of Mississippi with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in sculpture. He works out of his studio located in Oxford, where he lives with his wife and four children.
Examples of his work have been included in several international and national exhibitions, including but not limited to, the Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition, New Orleans, LA, The Walter Anderson Museum, Ocean Springs, MS, Scope Basel in Basel, Switzerland, Lima, Peru, several gallery and museum shows, and private collections.
Earl is a co-founder of the Yokna Sculpture Trail, a bi-annual rotating outdoor sculpture exhibition in Oxford, Mississippi. He is a recipient of the Mississippi Arts Commission 2019 Visual Arts Fellowship Grant, and a member of the International Sculpture Center.
Eliot Parker
Eliot Parker is the author of several books, most recently A FINAL CALL, which was named a "Best Book to Discover" by Kirkus Magazine and a finalist for the Hawthorne Prize in Fiction. His short story collection SNAPSHOTS won the Feathered Quill and PenCraft Book Awards for Short Story Anthology. A recipient of the West Virginia Literary Merit Award, Eliot hosts the podcast program "Now, Appalachia," on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. His two latest books, TABLE FOR TWO and DOUBLE-CROSSED will be released in 2024 and 2025.
For questions related to the workshop or to different abilities, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The Big Bad Business Series is funded in part through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mississippi Arts Commission.
Michelle Rounsaville
Oxford, Mississippi native Michelle Rounsaville wondered what could happen if she sold casseroles. Rounsaville’s emails were first sent to friends. She offered subscribers a few options of frozen casseroles, prepared fresh by her each week. By the end of the first run, her freezer was empty – and by June 2010, she needed a kitchen.
Just three years into business, she expanded her location and served in-house lunch. And four years after that, she executed a continental breakfast menu at the Inn at Ole Miss while sharing her expertise as a bar consultant and manager for The Jefferson. All the while, catering never slowed. By 2020, Rounsaville had fully tapped into her creative prowess. Her restaurant shut down, but she sold casseroles, individually prepared meals and home deliveries. Shortly thereafter, she added grab-and-go catering – a staple product of the business.
For 13 years, Rounsaville, voted as Best of Oxford’s Best Chef and Best Grove Caterer, has offered the community incredible storytelling through food. The chef has built enduring relationships with clients, while her meals, marked by an ever-changing menu, usher people together. She’s fed James Meredith, Supreme Court Justices, ESPN executives, and country music singers. She’s plated meals that honor marriages and birthdays; Christmas and Thanksgiving; lives lived and goals scored.
Jared Foster
Jared Foster is a seasoned entrepreneur and culinary force in the Southern seafood scene. Since 2015, he's been serving up authentic crawfish boils and building a seafood empire from the ground up. He now owns and operates seven food trucks, including The Landshark Seafood and The Velvet Ditch, and runs The Cajun Cartel, a seafood distribution company. Jared’s passion for Gulf Coast flavors and his innovative approach to mobile dining have made him a standout in the industry.
