Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

“Star Epiphany”

Book Excerpt: New Red Words

Larry D. Thacker’s poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in Poetry South, Appalachian Journal, Still: The Journal, and Pikeville Review, among other publications. His 2021 story collection, Working It Off in Labor County, was published by West Virginia University Press. He lives in Johnson City, Tennessee.

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"In Praise of Winter Trees"

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Bill Brown, a native of Dyersburg, Tennessee, was the author of many poetry collections, including Late Winter, The News Inside, and The Cairns. Brown also spent much of his life nurturing the work of other writers, chiefly during his years as a teacher at Nashville’s Hume-Fogg High School. He died on December 17, 2023.

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“There Is a Snake”

Book Excerpt: Florence

Bess Cooley is a winner of The Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, and her work has also appeared in Prairie Schooner, Western Humanities Review, and Verse Daily, among other publications. She is the co-founding editor of Peatsmoke Journal and teaches at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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“Threadbare”

Book Excerpt: Winter Sharp with Apples

Annette Sisson is the author of Small Fish in High Branches (2022). Her poems have been published in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Aeolian Harp Anthology, and elsewhere. She is a professor of English at Belmont University in Nashville. Sisson will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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“Bingo Cemetery, Green Mountains, Vermont”

Book Excerpt: My Infinity

Didi Jackson is the author of the poetry collections My Infinity (2024) and Moon Jar (2020). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Bomb, The New Yorker, and Oxford American. She lives in Nashville and teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University. She’ll appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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“On the Sidewalk of Troy, TN, 1904”

Book Excerpt: Vantablack

Ciona Rouse is a poet, editor, and educator based in Nashville. The author of the chapbook Vantablack (Third Man Books, 2017), her poetry also appears in Oxford American, Poem-a-DayNPR MusicThe SlowdownBooth, and other publications. Ciona Rouse will host a “A Celebration of Tennessee Poets for National Poetry Month,” part of the TN Writers | TN Stories series, at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville on April 13.

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