Amy Tan turns her discerning eye to the avian world
…her sketchbook for each. These are punctuated by her gorgeous portraits of birds, from dark-eyed juncos to a juvenile Cooper’s hawk to lesser goldfinches. As it turns out, writing novels…
Poet Jenny Qi on what shapes her work
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: This interview originally appeared on February 7, 2022. *** An accomplished poet and essayist, Jenny Qi brings a complex perspective to her writing. She’s the…
A new biography limns the life of musician and artist Terry Allen
…country musician whose art has been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, the MoMA, MOCA, LACMA, and via installations around the globe. To quote Allen, writing about art is “like trying…
James Seay’s essay collection reflects on mortality, literature, and the natural world
…as family sickness becomes a frequent occurrence. Seay, a Mississippi native who taught for a time at Vanderbilt University, is the author of four books of poetry and directed the…
Michael Sims remembers the bookstore where he found the world
…down by the delivery guy. Often a passerby held the door for me. Hillsboro Village, downhill from the Vanderbilt campus, was a quiet, friendly neighborhood in the late 1980s —…
Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You alternates between the #MeToo present and a 1990s mystery
Bodie Kane, the narrator of Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You, knows firsthand that media and audiences have insatiable appetites for stories about the deaths of attractive women….
