Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Kashif Andrew Graham

Word & Revelation

Poet Terrance Hayes minds and mines language in a pair of new books

In a new poetry collection and a volume of prose and images, poet Terrance Hayes undertakes a multi-faceted exploration of expression. Terrance Hayes will appear at Tennessee State University’s Otis Floyd Campus Center in Nashville on October 18 at 7 p.m. as part of the 2023 Southern Festival of Books.

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American as Apple Pie

Friends turn to each other in Brandon Taylor’s The Late Americans

With his second novel, The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor invites us into a study on the intersection of loneliness, belonging, and being happy.

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New Americana

Scott Gloden’s debut story collection delves into America’s identity dilemma

The Great American Everything received the C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize, given annually to an emerging writer from a Southern state. Despite the expressly regional tag, the stories in Scott Gloden’s debut collection could be called new Americana.

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Black Futures Forever

Two books of Afrofuturist fiction envision Black possibility and protest

Black Panther: Panther’s Rage by Sheree Renée Thomas and the anthology Africa Risen, which Thomas coedited, imagine worlds rich in Black life and agency.

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Randall Kenan Could Fly

A posthumous collection captures a beloved writer’s brilliance

Black Folk Could Fly, a volume of selected writings by the late Randall Kenan, explores the many aspects of African American life in the South.

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Much Ado About Something

Percival Everett plays with meaning and time in Dr. No

Percival Everett’s Dr. No is much ado about nothing. But in this novel, his 23rd, Everett explores the idea that perhaps nothing is something. Or everything.

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