This is a collection of true stories about uncommon people in East Tennessee. Their experiences, joys, and struggles are shared within these pages. Readers will meet innovative pranksters like Bill Greene, Harold Curtis, and Pal Barger; as well as, go deep undercover in moonshine country with Buster Brown. A 93 year old practicing Criminal Defense attorney named Burkett McInturff shares vignettes of his life from early childhood to old age.

JS Moore believes in the preservation of history, oral traditions, and the stories of the common people. What began as a collection of stories to pass along to his own family and friends about local flavor and happenings in the past century has blossomed into a cultural awakening of tales from a region steeped in tradition, superstition, and hard work. Gathering Leaves is a collection of short stories about characters from all over Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Expanding from his first book in the Series, Understanding Apples, JS Moore has invited a wide array of talented authors, artists, and photographers from every generation of the past 100 years to give their take in this compilation of Appalachian narratives. Gathering Leaves proves we all have a story within us to tell. But we must seek the courage to share it.

Understanding Apples is a collection of short pieces about Northeast Tennessee, notably the Long Island community of Kingsport - once a locale known for violence and bootlegging. The Island was actually a sacred ground to the Cherokee Nation and the Yuchi who settled there hundreds of years prior. Before 1776 and the Battle of Long Island Flats it was said that no man could be killed on Long Island. But later the chiefs of all seven clans gathered and "signed" a treaty with the white man, giving up not only hundreds of thousands of their acreage, but millions - including the sacred ground known as Long Island. Because the chieftains' decision was not unanimous among the elders or their sons a powerful curse was placed upon the hallowed ground: No man would ever find peace there. A mere window of events is shared within the pages of this book that offer only a glimpse of what life was like thereafter.