Brookhaven native Jimmie Moomaw will be back in town tonight to preview her new book, “My Backyard Was The A&P Parking Lot” at 6 p.m. The event, held at Lemanedi Arts and Interiors on 115 W. Cherokee St., is free and all are invited.

Moomaw grew up in Brookhaven through the 1940s and ‘50s. She attended Brookhaven High School and graduated from the Mississippi University for Women in 1958, and taught communications on the university level for 41 years before retiring. She published her first book, “Southern Fried Child: In Home Seeker’s Paradise” in 2010.

The book is a series of accounts about growing up in Brookhaven. One of her stories, “Hot Perm,” was presented to a live audience for NPR’s “Tales from the South” in 2012. There, it was selected as one of the top three stories from the program.

“We are very fortunate and proud to be bringing a popular hometown author back to Brookhaven to share her new work with her home town friends,” Lemanedi owner Holly Franklin said. “The story ‘My Backyard Was the A&P Parking Lot’ is especially appropriate as it is an account of the time she and her family lived over the fire station and she spent playing in the alleys in the interior of the city’s main block, beside the A & P and the old blacksmith’s shop and behind Woolworth and Morgan and Lindsey.”

Outside of writing memoirs, Moomaw is also a fan of the theater. She’s currently working with another author for a stage presentation.