Blue Winged Olive

In Blue Winged Olive, Tucker Chenoweth helps out a woman on the Appalachian Trail, and makes enemies of the two local men who are harassing her. The incident draws Tucker into a feud with the rednecks, who turn out to be arsonists and meth dealers, and initiates an intimate relationship with Samantha White, the woman from the Trail. Tucker and Sam are both avid fly fishers, who spend as much time as they can spare on the Watauga and Holston Rivers in northeast Tennessee, but their time together is repeatedly interrupted by the local toughs, whose connections to an area constable and two “respectable” businessmen threaten Sam’s life and force Tucker to fall back on skills he learned in Laos during the Vietnam war.

Don Johnson is a retired English professor. He is the author of four books of poems and two short stories, as well as numerous articles on Appalachian literature, the literature of sport, and contemporary American and Irish literature. For 18 years he served in various capacities as an editor of Aethlon: the Journal of Sport Literature. He lives with his wife and four big dogs on the banks of the Watauga River near Stoney Creek, Tennessee.