The Sessums siblings are connected by the trauma and pain of their childhoods. They say their &#8220otherness” forged them into a lasting bond.

Kevin Sessums was 8; his brother, Kim, 6; and little sister, Karole, 4, when their mother died of cancer. A year earlier, their father was killed in a car wreck. The gravel road that led to their maternal grandparents’ home in Forest, where they lived the rest of their childhoods, was also the road to a lifetime of being &#8220different.”

The term is something Kevin Sessums, now 51 and a celebrity journalist for magazines, such as &#8220Allure” and &#8220Vanity Fair,” has brought to light in his memoir. &#8220Mississippi Sissy” is his book about growing up in this state as a parentless child, striving to find himself.

Now, the &#8220Sessums orphans,” live separate lives, but they are forever connected by the tapestry of place and circumstance.

Kevin Sessums, now a resident of New York City, is on a tour promoting his book, which has been praised by authors Patti Carr Black, Kaye Gibbons and Michael Cunningham, as well as celebrity Ellen DeGeneres.

The siblings will once again connect March 23 when the author visits Vicksburg to sign and read from his first book at the H.C. Porter Gallery.

The first signature gallery of Mississippi artist H.C. Porter is co-owned by Kevin’s sister, 47-year-old Karole Sessums, who moved here about a year ago. She is the executive director of Backyards & Beyond: Mississippians and Their Stories, a traveling multi-media exhibit depicting the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, set to open in 2008. Their brother, Kim Sessums, a physician in Brookhaven, made history in Vicksburg in 2004 through his selection as the designer of the first monument to honor black Civil War soldiers placed in the Vicksburg National Military Park. Now, it’s Kevin Sessums’ turn.

&#8220In a way, it’s like coming home for Kevin,” Kim Sessums, 49, said.

For Kevin Sessums, early on, he realized his differences – his daydreams about being Arlene Francis on TV’s &#8220What’s My Line?,” his constant hand-on-hip stance and his decision to be a &#8220spy” the day of his mother’s funeral.

&#8220I was always a little sissy, who sat back and soaked it up,” he said of his life and the people around him at the time. &#8220It’s about ‘otherness’ – about being gay, orphaned and liberal in Mississippi and accepting that and celebrating that and realizing it’s not bad. It’s how I survived. It’s how I got through.”

Survival for his siblings, who weren’t quite old enough to know the pain and to understand the events like their big brother, was a little different.

While Kevin Sessums’ survival strategy was &#8220literally and figuratively closing the door,” Karole Sessums jumped head-first into life, experiencing things, such as a cross-country bike trip and a five-year singing career with the duo, Plain Jane.

&#8220I did it by doing the things I enjoyed,” she said of her own survival. &#8220I thought, ‘If I don’t do it now, I may not live to do it later.’ My whole life, I’ve thought life is short.”

And, for Kim Sessums, embracing his art and his practice – and the balance between the two – has been the key to surviving.

Creativity boils in the Sessumses. As children, it was building a village in their backyard, singing and playing the guitar, riding a unicycle, writing, drawing or playing Bette Midler records.

&#8220We are all artistic. It comes from surviving trauma with dignity,” Kevin Sessums said.

And while their grandparents, Lyle and Joyce Britt, were &#8220old people from the Depression-era,” as Kim Sessums described them, they encouraged the creativity.

&#8220There was this sense of oppression, but also a freedom of expression,” he said.

While &#8220Mississippi Sissy” is Kevin Sessums’ own perception of his parents – Howard Sessums, the All-American basketball player who died at 32, and Nan Sessums, who had a love of words and died at 33 – it is also about the events that surrounded Mississippi and its racial climate at the time and his relationships with his mentors, journalist Frank Haines and writer Eudora Welty. But, for the author, it is also a legacy for his siblings, who remember only snippits of those days.

&#8220I wanted, first and foremost, for the book to be a gift to my little brother and sister,” he said. &#8220I wanted to tell them a part of their lives they don’t really remember. They were 3 and 5 when it first happened. They don’t have the memories like I do.”

The persistence of pain, however, led them to find grace and to find it in each other.

&#8220We came to the realization that grace was important,” Kim Sessums said. &#8220And, we knew we needed a special dose.”

Karole Sessums, young as she was, remember that early childhood pain and said it continues to connect her to her brothers.

&#8220The three of us bonded early on to have this lifetime bond,” she said.

Kevin Sessums left Mississippi for New York when he was 19 and his siblings were in high school. But, now that he has &#8220become just ‘old man’ enough” to write about his childhood, he feels he has found the stranger inside him.

&#8220We will always have our Mississippi childhoods,” he said of his relationship with his siblings. &#8220We’ve gone through a lot of crucibles, but we’re still standing. Our parents must have been pretty spectacular. I think that in our genes we are survivors.”