Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Susannah Felts

A Story of Women and Power

Toil and Trouble surveys witchy history

In Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult, Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson profile religious leaders, entertainers, psychic mediums, healers, activists, and more, from Puritan New England to the witch-friendly grounds of social media today.

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Still Alive

Death haunts the essays in Rachel Kushner’s The Hard Crowd

Rachel Kushner’s The Hard Crowd gathers two decades of the critically acclaimed novelist’s personal narratives and critical writing. Kushner will appear at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 14-16.

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A Great Southern Voice

Rick Bragg returns with a collection of his short works

The name Rick Bragg is a kind of fixture of the South, likely familiar even to those who’ve never read a word of his prose. If that’s the case for you, a new collection of his short works, Where I Come From, is as good a place to start as any.

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The Past Rising Up

Randall Kenan’s If I Had Two Wings returns to Tims Creek

In Randall Kenan’s new story collection, If I Had Two Wings, the residents of Tims Creek, North Carolina, often find themselves in bewildering circumstances, caught up in twists of fate that demand an unrehearsed response. 

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A Sexy, Impressionistic Feast

Leesa Cross-Smith’s story collection makes a joyful statement

Leesa Cross-Smith’s new book of short fiction, So We Can Glow, feels like a radical act of joy. On the whole, the collection is a sexy, impressionistic feast of feminine energy and agency.

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