In the dead of winter, outside a small Minnesota town, state troopers pull two young women and their car from the icy Black Root River. One is found downriver, drowned, while the other is found at the scene—half frozen but alive. The Current, a new literary thriller by former Memphis novelist Tim Johnston, will be published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill on January 22, 2019.
In this excerpt from Jesus Crawdad Death, a new limited-edition chapbook from Third Man Books, Chapter 16’s Betsy Phillips considers the power of an unfinished ghost story by the late Hohenwald novelist William Gay. Phillips will appear at Third Man Records in Nashville on October 28 at 4 p.m.
Chattanooga poet Carrie Meadows grew up around leather workers, doll makers, quilters, and tall-tale tellers who taught her the importance of straight stitches and good stories. On July 15 Meadows will give a reading at the Hexagon Brewing Company in Knoxville as part of the SAFTA Reading Series.
Bryanna Licciardi is a graduate of Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, earned an M.F.A. in poetry from Emerson College, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in literacy studies from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. Skin Splitting is her first book.
