Appalachian Reckoning is a collection of regional responses to J.D. Vance’s controversial bestselling memoir, Appalachian Elegy. In this essay from the book, Kingsport native Robert Gipe, author of Trampoline and Weedeater, writes with humor and compassion about the town where he grew up, the industries that made people sick there, and the people he knew. Appalachian Reckoning will be published by West Virginia University Press on March 1, 2019.
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.
Connie Jordan Green lives on a farm in Loudon County, where her column for the Loudon County News Herald is in its fortieth year. She is the author of four poetry collections and will read from the newest, Darwin’s Breath at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 15.
