Eight books that capture the essence of Tennessee

Andrew Siegrist is a graduate of the Creative Workshop at the University of New Orleans. His work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, Arts & Letters, The Greensboro Review, Pembroke Magazine, Fiction Southeast, Bat City Review, and elsewhere. He lives on the Cumberland River outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

His new story collection is We Imagined It Was Rain.

At Electric Lit Siegrist tagged eight books that capture the essence of Tennessee, including:

A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter by Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni says: “I write a lot about Knoxville because Knoxville is my heart.” Her work set in Tennessee— including her poem “Knoxville Tennessee” and her famous “400 Mulvaney Street” essay—is a celebration of Black life in Knoxville, specifically the street in town where her grandparents lived in the 1950s, now completely changed since Giovanni’s childhood summers with her grandparents, who were prominent members of Knoxville’s Black community.

Giovanni’s voice in poetry and prose is unmistakably Appalachian, and has chronicled the experiences of Black Tennesseans over Urban Renewal and the Civil Rights Movement. Her work holds surrounding communities accountable through an expression of what has been lost.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue