Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

All in the Unsaid

A look back on Charles Wright’s influential poetry collection Black Zodiac

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Black Zodiac, Charles Wright pursues timeless questions of aging and mortality.

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Black Futures Forever

Two books of Afrofuturist fiction envision Black possibility and protest

Black Panther: Panther’s Rage by Sheree Renée Thomas and the anthology Africa Risen, which Thomas coedited, imagine worlds rich in Black life and agency. Sheree Renée Thomas will appear at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City on March 27. 

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A Living Pulse

Past and present mingle in collections by Loving, Shockley, and Underwood

In their recently published collections, poets Denton Loving, Evie Shockley, and Susan O’Dell Underwood each find an original expression for the mingling of past and present that presses at the edges of contemporary life. Susan O’Dell Underwood and Denton Loving will appear at the 2024 Tennessee Mountain Writers Conference in Oak Ridge, April 4-6

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“Hawk Says Finally”

Book Excerpt: The Intimacy of Spoons

Jim Minick is the author or editor of eight books, including Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas, Fire Is Your Water, and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. He will appear at the 2024 Tennessee Mountain Writers Conference in Oak Ridge, April 4-6.

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A Place for Us

SunAh M Laybourn on her new book exploring Korean adoptee identity

SunAh M Laybourn’s Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants provides both a glimpse into a complicated identity and a survey of the historical context surrounding it.

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The Royal Slave

Percival Everett’s James builds a new story from an old one

Prolific, critically acclaimed writer Percival Everett offers a new take on a controversial classic with his latest novel, James. Everett will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 25.

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