The 1920s literary magazine The Fugitive transformed Vanderbilt University into the home of New Criticism, spearheaded by a group of young poets. In Fugitive Days, author and professor Gerald Duff recalls meeting the poets, now older and accomplished, including Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Andrew Lytle. In these chance encounters, Duff finds the humanity in each -- some approachable, some remote, some lost in the wilds of age or overshadowed by their own legends. Duff takes away with him new understanding of what writers-as-fugitives gain and sacrifice in pursuit of their craft.

Gerald Duff is a native of the Texas Gulf Coast, and has taught literature and writing at Vanderbilt University, Kenyon College, and Johns Hopkins University. The title story of Fire Ants won the Cohen Prize from Ploughshares Magazine, was cited in Best American Short Stories, and republished in The Editors' Choice: New American Stories. His novels have been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Prize, an Edgar Allan Poe Award, an International eBook Award, and a Texas Institute of Letters Award. He has published two collections of poetry, A Ceremony of Light and Calling Collect, and six novels, including Indian Giver, That's All Right, Mama: The Unauthorized Life of Elvis's Twin, Memphis Ribs, and Coasters and Fire Ants from NewSouth Books.