Lorraine López sends up the foibles of arts faculty in Postcards from the Gerund State
Lorraine M. López’s sharply funny collection of linked short stories, Postcards from the Gerund State, focuses on a group of women faculty navigating life and work at a small conservative women’s college.
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A writer explores her enduring ties to a seasonal classic by Dylan Thomas
Every year, when the stresses of the holiday season begin whipping up into frenzy, I weather them by imagining that I’m roaming around the world described in the Dylan Thomas story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”: the magic of winter, the mysteries surrounding older family members, and the odd flexes of time when normal schedules are suspended.
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Contemporary Appalachian writers profile one another in Step into the Circle
In Step into the Circle, editors Amy Greene and Trent Thomson bring together Appalachian writers and photographers to profile some of the region’s beloved literary forces, including Wendell Berry, Silas House, Crystal Wilkinson, Ron Rash, and Lee Smith.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates turns his talents toward fiction in a powerful debut novel
Journalist and essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates brings compassion and mastery to his debut novel, The Water Dancer, a story of slavery, freedom, and the mystical power of memory. Coates will discuss The Water Dancer at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville on November 6 at 6:15 p.m.
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Two small town lovers grapple with an unexpected pregnancy in Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne’s Holding on to Nothing
In her debut novel, Holding on to Nothing, Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne creates a fresh, moving story of young lovers in a small East Tennessee town and the myriad forces that trouble them as they set out to make a family. Shelburne will discuss Holding on to Nothing at The Porch in Nashville on Oct. 10 and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on Oct. 11-13.
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In The Affairs of the Falcóns, Melissa Rivero explores the plight of an undocumented mother in 1990s New York
In her debut novel, The Affairs of the Falcóns, Melissa Rivero creates an indelible protagonist in undocumented, Peruvian-born Ana, whose life as a mother and wife in mid-1990s New York is a constant, tenuous gauntlet. Melissa Rivero will discuss The Affairs of the Falcóns at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, held on October 11-13.
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