New voices for a new year!

A Wang Dang Doodle with Helen of Troy, 1993 and a trip to the 'Arkansas Line'

Online and on air: Thursday, Feb. 13 – Sunday Feb. 16 – The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour welcomes new voices to kick off 2025!

Guests: Southern poet Maria ZoccolaHelen of Troy, 1993 – Reimagines Helen of Troy from Homer’s Iliad as a disgruntled housewife in 1990s Tennessee.

Voted by New York Times Books We Recommend This Week“: Poetry Review: ‘Helen of Troy, 1993,’ by Maria Zoccola – The New York Times

Music: Blues singer Edna Nicole and country songwriter Amber Rae Dunn

Hosts: Jim Dees with Paul Tate and the Mighty Yalobushwhacker Big Band featuring the Thacker Horns!

Broadcast airtimes:

Thursday, Feb. 6 – 6 pm (CT) WUMS 92.1 University of Mississippi

Thursday, Feb. 13 – 8 am (CT) WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN.

Saturday, Feb. 15 – 3 pm (ET) WUTC 88.1 FM Chattanooga, TN

7 pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting

9 pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio

Sunday, Feb. 16

3 pm (ET) WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville

2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico

Archived here: Spotify, SoundCloudGoogle PodcastiHeart Radio

Photo of Paul Tate: Eli Brown (Jackson MS, Duling Hall, Nov. 15, 2024)

Featuring

Author

Maria Zoccola

Maria Zoccola is a Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee.

Her debut collection of poetry, Helen of Troy, 1993 (Scribner), was published on January 14, 2025.

This sharp, visceral collection reimagines Helen of Troy from Homer’s Iliad as a disgruntled housewife in 1990s Tennessee.

Upon its release The New York Times voted it one of the “Books We Recommend This Week,” along with a positive review. 

In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early 1990s, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife.

But leaving isn’t the same thing as staying gone…

In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency.

She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices.

Maria’s fiction and poetry can be found in Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Electric Literature’s The Commuter, The Iowa Review.

Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize.

Amber Rae Dunn

Nominated for both Female Vocalist of the Year and Entertainer of the Year for three years in a row by the Tennessee Music Awards, country stylist Amber Rae Dunn is making her mark in Memphis.

Her latest album is I Guess That’s Life. Her previous album is Arkansas Line.

Amber Rae is also a radio broadcaster. She co-hosts the show, “Memphis Connection,” on WYPL 89.3 FM with co-host Leon Griffin.

https://amberraedunn.com/my-merch

Edna Nicole

Edna Nicole Luckett is a singer, songwriter (and published author!) from the Mississippi Delta who recently dropped her debut single, “Delta Dirt.”

Edna Nicole has a passion for uplifting others through service and music. A mother of three, she is the owner of Suga Mama’s Sweets, LLC.