The Birth Spoon

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By Fred Waage ’65

Published Jan. 21, 2016

In The Birth Spoon, high-school student Harry uncovers dark and deadly secrets about his small Appalachian community while completing an assignment. Based on an actual case of racial discrimination and community displacement, the novella is set in the early 1980s, a quarter-century after the injustices of the urban-renewal period in America. Fred Waage ’65 *71 is a professor at East Tennessee State University.

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PAW's October 2026 cover, featuring a photo of a loaf of challah bread and the headline "The Braids That Bind."
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