Fiction: Odie Lindsey Born in San Antonio and currently living in Nashville, Odie Lindsey is the winner in fiction for his first novel, Some Go Home, already named one of “8 Major Debuts of the Summer” by BookPage and a “standout” debut novel by Library Journal. Threaded with musical references, the title is from a Jerry Jeff Walker song. The story is set in the fictional town of Pitchlynn, Mississippi. A desert storm veteran, Lindsey explores the effects of the Iraq war on his characters, including female combat veteran, Colleen. In an interview Lindsey said that he “wanted to write about war culture. About war as hell brought home.” Lindsey is the author of the short story collection, We Come to Our Senses, included on two “Best of 2016” lists. His stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Iowa Review, and Guernica, among others.
Lindsey received an MA from the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and an MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While in Oxford, Mississippi, he worked as a bookseller at Square Books and took a course from Barry Hannah, which he compared to the grueling experience of basic training. He received a NEA-funded fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a Tennessee Arts Commission fellowship in Literature, and was a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He served as Associate Editor of the Mississippi Encyclopedia, which he described as “pivotal” to his novel, Some Go Home.
Lindsey is currently Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University’s department of Medicine, Health, and Society.