Chapter 16

Tiny, Memorable Moments

Gaylord Brewer explores the quirky and the profound in a new collection of nonfiction

By Eve Hutcherson | May 21, 2024

Prolific Murfreesboro poet Gaylord Brewer turns his hand to short nonfiction in Before the Storm Takes It Away, his latest from Red Hen Press. While the structure of the 125 pieces here may project Brewer’s voice in a different light, Brewer’s fans and new readers alike will relish the opportunity to walk with the poet on his personal journey through the seasons of the year captured in this collection.

Strawberry Season Arrives

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

By Eve Hutcherson | May 7, 2024

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.

Fans Take to the Roadshow

Family treasures and a shot at TV stardom

By Eve Hutcherson | November 30, 2022

Antiques Roadshow, the PBS TV series that for 25 years has revealed the history and occasionally breathtaking value of collectibles was coming to Nashville, and I had tickets. From there to stardom seemed what Bertie Wooster would have called a stone-dead cert, if ever there was one.

Hope Smiles

A holiday experiment yields a lesson in kindness

By Eve Hutcherson | December 7, 2021

In return for sore feet, knuckles slammed in register drawers, and more of that sort of amusement, I had the privilege of watching, over and over again, one of the most powerful human emotions: generosity, and the genuine desire to give to others, not as a perfunctory requirement, but as an expression of love.

Sweet Songs Never Last Too Long

A fan remembers 40 years of following John Prine

By Eve Hutcherson | May 7, 2021

The first time I saw John Prine in concert, it was hard to know what to make of him. As a college student at the University of Kentucky in the late 1970s, a music fan since childhood, I was already a veteran of many concerts, spanning rock to folk to R&B to jazz to church music. But who had ever seen anything like this guy?

People of the Pandemic

Remembering the first days of the coronavirus crisis

By Eve Hutcherson | June 18, 2020

Nothing illuminates the beauty of the average day quite so brilliantly as the fear that the average day has vanished indefinitely — maybe for always.

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher