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Poet / Scholar / Teacher

Liner Notes
A Debut Poetry Collection

Releases October 23

LINER NOTES Jamie L. McDaniel FINISHING LINE PRESS
grief is repetition

An innovative, deeply intimate hybrid of poetry, memoir, and cultural criticism that traces a Southern man’s journey through staggering loss and fierce love. Structured like a pop song—Intro, Verse, Bridge, Verse, Outro—each section composes a new track in an evolving soundtrack of grief, weaving in pop music, film, disability studies, and the textures of Southern family life.

The book release on October 23, so pick up your copy today from Finishing Line Press.

Order from Finishing Line Press

Liner Notes

JAMIE L. McDANIEL · FINISHING LINE PRESS · OCTOBER 2026

“Beautiful and real… it makes you smile and makes you cry and makes your stomach hurt and makes you sputter in amazement that people can weave such magic out of twenty-six letters, a few punctuation marks, and a blank screen.”

— Robert Gipe, author of Trampoline, Weedeater, and Pop

“At once tender and unflinching, straightforward and beguilingly complex… as simultaneously sweet and sharp as a Southerner saying ‘Bless your heart.’”

— Darby Price, author of All the Lands We Inherit

“Not simply a collection about loss, but also a love letter to the body, to home in all of its permutations, and to those the leaving leave behind.”

— Darby Price, author of All the Lands We Inherit

“A poet who hears the world in musical patterns… where grief can stutter but still move forward.”

— Annie Woodford, author of Peasant and Where You Come From Is Gone

“These poems of both theory and vulnerability are undergirded by a luminous attention to the ordinary details of life.”

— Annie Woodford, author of Peasant and Where You Come From Is Gone

“Readers will find themselves returning to the pages of this brilliant debut time and time again.”

— Darby Price, author of All the Lands We Inherit

Presale: June 22 – August 28, 2026 · Finishing Line Press

Meet the Author

Jamie L. McDaniel was born and raised in Northeast Alabama, a place that influences much of his work. He is Professor of English in the School of Writing, Language, and Literature at Radford University in Radford, Virginia. He is the winner of the 2025 Chautauqua Creative Writing Contest for Poetry. Liner Notes is his debut poetry collection.

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