Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Ball of Fire

Book Excerpt: Walk Through Fire

Yasmine S. Ali’s Walk Through Fire: The Train Disaster that Changed America recounts the 1978 derailment and explosion in Waverly, Tennessee, that killed 16 people and led to the creation of FEMA. Dr. Ali will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 27, the Humphreys County Public Library in Waverly on March 3, and the Tennessee State Museum on April 8.

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“Statues in the Park”

Book Excerpt: Intimacies in Borrowed Light

Intimacies in Borrowed Light is the first full-length poetry collection by Knoxville native Darius Stewart, who is also the author of three chapbooks. He received the 2021 Emerging Writer Award from the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame and is currently a Lulu “Merle” Johnson Doctoral Fellow in English Literary Studies at the University of Iowa. He lives in Iowa City with his dog, Fry.

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“Sleeping Over on Highway 78”

Book Excerpt: My Back Pages: The Teresa Poems

“Sleeping Over on Highway 78” is included in Floyd Collins’ 2022 collection, My Back Pages: The Teresa Poems, published by Stephen F. Austin University Press.

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“Molly in a Red Wig Plays a Fiddle”

Book Excerpt: In the Backhoe’s Shadow

Thomas Alan Holmes is a professor of English at East Tennessee State University. In the Backhoe’s Shadow is his first collection of poetry. He’ll read from his work at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 11 and at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 14-16.

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