Jesse Graves is the author of five poetry collections, including Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine: Tenth Anniversary Expanded Edition, Basin Ghosts, Specter Mountain, Merciful Days, and the forthcoming A Little Light in the Grave. Mercer University Press published my collection of essays, Said-Songs: Essays on Poetry and Place. My work

Jennifer Wachtel Kates was born and raised in middle Tennessee. She earned her B.A. in Creative Writing from Rhodes College, her M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers, and her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Georgia State University. She has

Local Heroes (releasing 2026), winner of the Terry J. Cox Poetry Award is David Tucker’s third collection of poems. His first book, Late for Work, won the Bakeless Poetry Prize, selected by Philip Levine, and was published by Houghton Mifflin. He also won a national chapbook contest held by

Ron Rash is the author of the PEN/Faulkner finalist and New York Times bestselling novel Serena, in addition to the critically acclaimed novels The Caretaker, The Risen, Above the Waterfall, The Cove, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; five collections of poems;

Sheldon Lee Compton is the author of twelve books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His novel, Oblivion Angels, is currently nominated for the Chaffin Award for Fiction, and the Independent Fiction Alliance named his novel, Alice, a best book of the year. His work has also been published in Best

Gaylord Brewer is the author of fifteen previous books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and cookery, including Country of Ghost (Red Hen, 2015) and The Poet’s Guide to Food, Drink, & Desire (Stephen F. Austin, 2015). His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to Literature.

Jeff Hardin is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently Watermark, A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being, and No Other Kind of World. His work has been honored with the Nicholas Roerich Prize, the Donald Justice Prize, and the X. J. Kennedy Prize. Recent and forthcoming

Editor’s note: This previously unpublished, early story—written in the mid-1960s either while William Gay was still in the Navy or had just completed his service—is from a handwritten journal found among his papers after his passing. The story appears here courtesy of the William Gay Archive, J.

Ellen Morris Prewitt is an award-winning author who has lived all over, but not outside of, the American South. She was the Peter Taylor Fellow at The Kenyon Review’s Summer Writing Program and currently serves as Writer-in-Residence at 100 Men Hall, an iconic Mississippi Blues site. “Poached Peaches” is