Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Strawberry Season Arrives

A berry lover nominates a new contender for the most wonderful time of the year

These red crown jewels of cuisine, the tiny ripe ones sweet enough to make you weep on first bite if you weren’t too busy reaching for another — they come from right up the road this time of year, if you are lucky enough to live in the right places. In our neck of the woods, the strawberry epicenter is Portland, Tennessee, and the farms stretching out across the rolling hills of the region.

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How to Start a Civil War

Erik Larson puts the reader in the action during the lead-up to America’s deadliest conflict

In The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, bestselling author Erik Larson offers a compelling and sobering account of the months between the 1860 presidential election and the attack on Fort Sumter. Larson will discuss the book at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville on May 13.

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Motherless Child

Monica Brashears’ debut novel delivers a strange, haunting world

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: With its reverberations of pain and trauma, Monica Brashears’ debut novel House of Cotton is not for the faint of heart; however, it is lush, gorgeous evidence of a new and decisive talent. 

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“Haunting My Own Name”

Julian Randall’s lyrical memoir uncovers the past to light a brighter future

Comprised of braided essays which use key pop-culture moments to weave together stories of triumph and personal exploration, Julian Randall’s The Dead Don’t Need Reminding unearths grief and deeply rooted family histories.

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Damaged Goods

In Colm Tóibín’s Long Island, an Irish immigrant returns home to pick up the pieces of her life

In Colm Tóibín’s new novel Long Island, an Irish immigrant in New York returns to her home village to reassess her broken life. Tóibín will discuss Long Island at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 9.

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Both in and out of Place

Deviant Hollers pushes against reductive stereotypes about Appalachia’s future

Pushing against narratives of Appalachia that include only white, patriarchal, and heteronormative characterizations, the authors collected in Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future hope to open up new spaces of possibility for envisioning the region.

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