A Committed Conservative
She’s on the Bird
Good Sport
Obsessed with Understanding
It Ain’t Math
Chapter 16
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“Return Key”

By Corey Mesler |

April 25, 2014 Corey Mesler’s work has been published in many journals and anthologies. In addition to a dozen chapbooks of both poetry and prose, he has also published eight novels, four full-length poetry collections, and three books of short stories. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and two of his poems were chosen for The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. Mesler lives in Memphis, where he is the co-owner (with his wife, Cheryl Mesler) of Burke’s Book Store. He will read from and sign copies of his newest collection, The Catastrophe of My Personality, at Burke’s on May 1, 2014, at 5:30 p.m.

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History, Meet Mystery

Greg Iles is back, and his new thriller channels the storytelling style of William Faulkner

By Liz Garrigan |

April 24, 2014 In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the mayor of Natchez, Mississippi, gets a phone call that will change his life forever—and possibly reveal many secrets from the South’s deadly civil-rights struggle. New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles is back with a megathriller, Natchez Burning, the first in a trilogy whose themes of race relations, Southern tradition, and the corrupting nature of power are woven throughout a story so powerful that its 800 pages seem less like a challenge than a gift. Iles will discuss Natchez Burning at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on May 1, 2014, at 6 p.m.

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Staring Into the Abyss

Christian Wiman, former editor of Poetry magazine, searches for the “poetry and prose” of contemporary faith

By Beth Waltemath |

April 23, 2014 A married father of two fighting a rare cancer, Christian Wiman faces the bottomless questions of existence and craves the “poetry and prose of knowing.” His memoir, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer, draws on both forms to describe his own experiences of grace. Wiman will speak at the Buechner Institute at King University in Bristol on April 24, 2014, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

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Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Andrew Gross’s latest thriller captures the moral dilemmas that arise during calamity

By Chris Scott |

April 22, 2014 In Andrew Gross’s Everything to Lose, Hilary Cantor makes one wrong decision that turns her financially desperate life into a fight for survival. A New York City cop whose life is equally upside down joins her in a battle through a landscape still struggling to recover from the twin disasters of the Great Recession and Superstorm Sandy. Andrew Gross will discuss Everything to Lose at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Cool Springs on April 28, 2014, at 7 p.m.

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A Prize-Winning "Start"

Elizabeth Spencer’s new story collection, Starting Over has won the Rea Award

By Serenity Gerbman |

April 22, 2014 We won’t condescend to Elizabeth Spencer by counting her age (which is ninety-two) as the most extraordinary element of her recent productivity. Any working writer of any age would live for years like the one Spencer is having, which includes a prestigious award and a critically acclaimed new collection of stories, slyly titled Starting Over.

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Rounding Up the Strays

Chapter 16 talks with George Singleton about the lost dogs—and humans—in his hilarious new story collection

By Michael Ray Taylor |

April 21, 2014 With Stray Decorum, his fourth short-story collection, George Singleton has cemented his reputation as one of the country’s finest—and funniest—masters of the short story. Singleton will give a free public reading at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on April 21, 2014. The event will take place in the Dead Poets Society Room of Lowry Hall at 5 p.m.

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