The Birth Spoon
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.

Paw in print
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The Latest Issue
October 2025
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott ’92; President Eisgruber ’83 defends higher ed; Julia Ioffe ’05 explains Russia.