Jenny Qi’s essays and poems have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Tin House, ZYZZYVA, Rattle, and elsewhere. Qi, a 2011 graduate of Vanderbilt University, holds a Ph.D. in biomedical science from the University of California, San Francisco and works as a competitive intelligence manager tracking research in oncology. Focal Point is her first book.
Old Roads is a collection of haiku and photographs by East Tennessee writer Brett Taylor. The photographs were taken in an array of Tennessee locations, including Wartburg, Petros, Greenback, Pall Mall, Norris, Cades Cove, and south Knoxville. Taylor has written for The South Carolina Review, Skeptical Inquirer, Fortean Times, Filmfax, Green Mountains Review, Folio, Ampersand, Redivider, Big Muddy and San Pedro River Review.
Marianne Worthington is a poet, editor, and cofounder of Still: The Journal. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, CALYX, Grist, and other outlets. She is coeditor, with Silas House, of Piano in a Sycamore: Writing Lessons from the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop. She grew up in Knoxville and currently lives in southeastern Kentucky.
Henry L. Jones is a Black poet, artist, playwright, performance artist, and activist. His poetry has appeared in The Willow Review, The Vanderbilt Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. His second poetry collection, Black Skillet Blues: Poetry without Cornbread (Beatlick Press) is due in late 2021. A Fisk University graduate and the inaugural poet laureate of Hendersonville, Jones is an editor of Sinew: 10 Years of Poetry in the Brew, an anthology of work from the long-running open-mic reading series based in Nashville.
Black Cowboys of Rodeo: Unsung Heroes from Harlem to Hollywood and the American West by Keith Ryan Cartwright collects the stories of pioneering Black cowboys, placing their challenges and triumphs against the backdrop of America’s struggle for racial equality and social justice. Cartwright will appear at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 4.
Didi Jackson’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. She currently teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University.
