Khristeena Lute

Novelist, English Professor, and Writing Center Director

A book titled 'Whipoorwill Sing' by Khristeena Lute, featuring an illustrated cover with a bird and a butterfly flying over a purple landscape at sunset.
Close-up of a woman with long dark hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, sitting outdoors near a brick wall, wearing a dark blue top, with her hand touching her face.

Whippoorwill Sing centers on college-dropout Atlas, as she faces the daunting task of saving the family home in a rundown Appalachian town. There, she also finds work in a museum housed in a former sanatorium. Atlas's life becomes evermore complicated when she must face the ghosts of her own family’s legacies in order to ensure that it has a future. Lute's masterfully written second novel, Whippoorwill Sing in the genre of Appalachian Gothic, shows the author's talent for capturing her own roots. And just as so often is the case in all of our lives, Atlas chases the promise of forthcoming destiny, all while hoping that she's informed by the truth of the past.

Coming June 2026 from Thorncraft Publishing