Book Excerpt: Exorcism Lessons in the Heartland
Cara Dees is the author of Exorcism Lessons in the Heartland, winner of the 2018 Barrow Street Book Prize. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Best New Poets, Harvard Review, and Poetry Daily. A Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cincinnati, she holds an M.F.A. from Vanderbilt University. Dees will appear at the 2019 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on October 11-13.
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Book Excerpt: Candescent
Linda Parsons’ poetry has appeared in The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and Shenandoah, among many other journals and anthologies. She is playwright-in-residence for The Hammer Ensemble, the social justice wing of Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville. Candescent is her fifth poetry collection. Parsons will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 29.
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Book Excerpt: Sugar Fix
Kory Wells recently served two terms as the Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, where she founded and manages the reading series Poetry in the Boro. Her work has appeared in James Dickey Review, Ruminate, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Tennessee, and other publications. Wells will discuss Sugar Fix at the 2019 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on October 11-13.
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Book Excerpt: CEASE
Beth Bachmann is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow and the author of three award-winning poetry collections: Temper, Do Not Rise, and CEASE. She serves as writer-in-residence in the M.F.A. program in creative writing at Vanderbilt University. Bachmann will read from her work at Vanderbilt University on August 29.
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Bill Brown grew up in West Tennessee ten miles from the Mississippi River. He is the author of eight poetry collections and a writing textbook. Formerly the director of the writing program at Hume-Fogg Academic High School in Nashville, he was named a Distinguished Teacher in the Arts in 1995 by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and the 2011 Writer of the Year by the Tennessee Writers Alliance. His latest book is The News Inside. “When the Dust Settles” is from his 2008 collection, Late Winter.
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Lisa Coffman, who grew up in East Tennessee, has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Bucknell University’s Stadler Center for Poetry. Her first collection of poetry, Likely, won the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize from Kent State University Press. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee. She teaches at the California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. “Born Under the Sign Of” is an excerpt from her new collection, Less Obvious Gods.
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