Leslie Wylie

As children, Christmas is marketed to us as this sleigh ride through a wonderland of enchantment and awe. The snow-path before us sparkles with mystery: How is Santa going to get my pony down the chimney?

Zo Howell, age 2, flashes a gummy grin, his tiny mouth full of cream cheese. Eight-year-old Taye is across the room, play-wrestling a Great Dane. Somewhere outside their modest home in northeast Knoxville, a lawnmower growls to a start, nearly ...

Crowded around a table in an Old City pizzeria, the members of Down From Up look the part of a cooler-than-thou rock band: sunglasses, chains, enough black to dress a funeral procession. The aesthetic is a reasonable reflection of the ...

Gay Street’s venerable watering hole, the Bistro at the Bijou, has long been an after-hours haven for downtown working stiffs. After a long day at the office, they slouch in, loosen their ties, and douse their troubles with a pint ...

Horse Haven, a 5019(c)(3) non-profit, receives zilch in government funding and racks up tens of thousands of dollars each year in expenses. So how does it stay afloat? The answer is, it wouldn’t if not for a generous network of ...

All morning the December sky has been pressing down like an anvil, heavy and dark. The temperature is just above freezing—cold, but not quite cold enough to transform the sheets of rain into a more cheerful mist of snow. As ...

Most of us no longer consider it remarkable that downtown Knoxville’s eastern skyline is rounded out by the world’s largest basketball. After all, it’s been a full decade since a crane lowered the 10-ton crown jewel of the Women’s Basketball ...

“Local Singer/Songwriter Throws Self to Wolves, Is Eaten Alive.” That could’ve been the title of my 2005 interview with Christa DeCicco, a shy songstress who’d recently been dipping her toes in the shark-infested waters of local open-mic nights. Her voice—a ...

Boiled peanuts are a culinary litmus test. You either love them or they disgust you. Regardless of whether you’re for or against, you’ve no doubt noticed that those soggy sacks of gummy legumes are migrating north with the plantation-country deep ...

Leslie Wylie goes deep into Knoxville’s quarries to discover their murky secrets.