Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

“Ascension”

Book Excerpt: Moon Jar

Didi Jackson’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. She currently teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University. 

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“The holiday / of catastrophe …”

Book Excerpt: Our Cancers

Dan O’Brien’s Our Cancers chronicles the year and a half during which both he and his wife, actor and writer Jessica St. Clair, were treated for cancer. O’Brien is the author of three previous poetry collections and the recipient of many playwriting honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and two PEN America Awards. His essay collection A Story That Happens: On Playwriting, Childhood, & Other Traumas was published in 2021. He has served on the faculty of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference for more than a decade.

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“Center Hill”

Book Excerpt: Savage Flower

Anna B. Sutton was born and raised in Nashville. She received her B.F.A. from the Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Tech and her M.F.A. from University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her debut collection, Savage Flower, was the winner of the 2019 St. Lawrence Book Award. She will appear at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books.

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“One Thing I Have Learned”

Book Excerpt: Edge of the Echo

KB Ballentine’s seventh collection, Edge of the Echo, launched in May 2021 with Iris Press. Earlier books include The Light Tears Loose; Almost Everything, Almost Nothing; and Gathering Stones. Her work also appears in anthologies including Pandemic Evolution (2021). She lives in Chattanooga.

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Archaic Snailfishing in Nashville

Book Excerpt: Mastodons to Mississippians: Adventures in Nashville’s Deep Past

Mastodons to Mississippians: Adventures in Nashville’s Deep Past by Aaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres explores the “archaeological roots of Music City.” The book will be published by Vanderbilt University Press in August 2021.

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“Hosea’s Appeal”

Book Excerpt: Where the Wind Comes From

Richard Jackson has published 26 books, including 15 books of poems: most recently, Take Five (2020) and Broken Horizons (2018). He has been teaching at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga since 1976, where he directs the Meacham Writers’ Workshop.

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