The Birth Spoon

Placeholder author icon
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.

Paw in print

Image
The September 2026 cover of PAW, featuring the headline "Minds at Play" written in game pieces — crossword, Scrabble, and Rubics Cube.
The Latest Issue

September 2026

Princetonians who puzzle; inside ORFE’s rise; how 9/11 changed lives.