A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Essays

Anguish and Anticipation

By Amy Greene

March 28, 2011 Waiting for my first novel to be released was a little bit like torture, and I could almost believe that getting a book deal had been a dream. In the three years between the day my agent sold the book and the day it was officially published, there were two rounds of edits, followed by copyediting, then proofreading, and, finally, months of behind-the-scenes production and marketing that had nothing to do with me. After years of blood, sweat, and tears, my novel was out of my hands. Bloodroot would have a life of its own, and all I could do was watch.

Seeing in the Dark

By John Egerton

March 17, 2011 The book business is in serious trouble. In Nashville alone, Zibart’s and Mills are so long-gone that most shoppers in their Hillsboro Village and Green Hills neighborhoods have never heard of them. Now Davis-Kidd is also gone, and OutLoud too, and Borders on West End is tiptoeing under a corporate-bankruptcy cloud. In Knoxville, Carpe Librum is shuttered. In Memphis, BookStar is gone, too, and the only remaining Davis-Kidd outlet in the state is in limbo because its Ohio-based corporate owners have filed for bankruptcy protection. Author John Egerton considers this blighted landscape and finds a ray of hope in the persistence of self-published authors like David Meador, who are helping to keep the literary embers warm in these distressing times. David Meador will discuss and autograph Broken Eyes, Unbroken Spirit at BookMan/BookWoman in Nashville on March 22 at 5 p.m.

Peachtree Memories

By Tina LoTufo

February 2, 2011 Unlike most publishing houses, we accepted unsolicited manuscripts, and it was my job to wade through the slush pile and pluck out the undiscovered gems. At least half of them turned out to be memoirs of the authors’ rural childhoods. Although there were times when I thought I would go mad if I had to read one more account of hog-killing time, I wrote scores of rejection letters in which I tried to soften the blow with assurances that their children and grandchildren would treasure these priceless written histories for years to come. I doubt the recipients were much comforted, but I was sincere. In fact, I was envious.

Unanointed, Unannealed

By Stanley Booth

January 20, 2011 Memphis artist William Eggleston is all over the news: this week marks the closing of a retrospective exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the announcement of a proposed Eggleston museum in his native Memphis, and the opening of an Eggleston exhibit at the Frist Museum of Art in Nashville. In addition, Twin Palms Publishers recently brought out a new collection of Eggleston prints—itself a companion volume to Michael Almereyda’s documentary film, William Eggleston in the Real World. Today, journalist Stanley Booth, a longtime friend of Eggleston from his own Memphis days, considers the work of the man known as “the father of modern color photography.”

Valuable Artifacts

By Richard Bausch

January 3, 2010 Richard Bausch is the author of nineteen books of fiction, including the novels Rebel Powers, Violence, Good Evening Mr. & Mrs. America And All The Ships At Sea, In The Night Season, Hello To The Cannibals, Thanksgiving Night, The Last Good Time, and Peace; and the short-story collections Spirits, The Fireman’s Wife, Rare & Endangered Species, Someone To Watch Over Me, The Stories of Richard Bausch, Wives & Lovers, and his newest book, Something Is Out There. He has won two National Magazine Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund Writer’s Award, the Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and The 2004 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. In 1995 he was elected to the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He currently holds the Moss Chair of Excellence in the Writing Program at The University of Memphis.

Toothache

By Maria Browning

August 20, 2010 I’ve never had a baby, or a kidney stone, or even a broken leg; the brain-spearing throb of a bad tooth is about the closest thing to agony I’ve ever known. I’m not especially fond of agony, so all my adult life I’ve trotted off to the dentist every six months, in the naïve belief that check-ups would save me from ever again experiencing the dental nightmares I endured as a kid. But no. The tooth demon paid a call over the last long holiday weekend, which I spent gobbling Advil and watching with horror as the right side of my face puffed up like a bullfrog’s throat. Bright and early on the first day office hours resumed, I was reclining in the dental chair, contemplating my complicated relationship with authority and pain.

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