Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

A Glowing Review

Lynn Frierson Faust shares her passion for bioluminescent beetles—a.k.a. lightning bugs

In the preface to her elegant new guide, Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs, Lynn Frierson Faust, an independent researcher known as “The Lightning Bug Lady,” tells the story of how…

A Noble Lunacy

Through the story of a break-in at Oak Ridge, Dan Zak’s Almighty explores the tensions of the atomic age

…in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. With surprising ease, they broke into the facility. They painted graffiti: “Woe to an Empire of Blood.” They tossed human blood upon the walls. With the…

Utopia, Nostalgia, and the Bomb

Oak Ridge tells triumphant stories about its past; Lindsey A. Freeman asks if they’re the right stories

…workers in Oak Ridge. In personal recollections and public commemorations, Oak Ridgers cast their city as an “atomic utopia,” “an island of culture, prestige, and intelligence tucked away from the…

“Tennessee Line”

…Prize. He was born in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee, and grew up in Oak Ridge and Kingsport. To read more about the new Poet Laureate, click here. Tennessee Line Afternoon overcast…

The Oak Ridge Girls

Denise Kiernan’s new book exposes the secret lives of the Tennessee women who unknowingly built the first nuclear bombs

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one of the best-kept secrets in the saga of how the United States built the first nuclear weapons. The U.S. government brought thousands of workers, including scores…

Beneath the Surface

Sara J. Henry’s second novel delves into the mysteries of a frozen landscape

…handle the emotional fallout.” Oak Ridge native Sara J. Henry won the Agatha, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark Awards with her first novel, Learning to Swim. That story of family…

TAKE THE SHORT READER SURVEY! CHAPTER 16 SURVEYOR SURVEYING