Features | Chapter 16

Reconsidering My Whole Position

Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poems finally allowed Kate Daniels to call herself a Southern writer

By Kate Daniels | June 10, 2016

June 10, 2016 Robert Penn Warren is the only writer to have won a Pulitzer Prize in both poetry and fiction—and he won for poetry twice: in 1958 for Promises: Poems and in 1979 for Now and Then: Poems. In the fifth of a nine-essay series commemorating the centennial year of the Pulitzer Prizes, poet Kate Daniels remembers the way Warren’s poetry helped her confront an ugly past.

In a Dark Wood

Novelist Adam Ross first opened the closet of adult secrets through the plays of Tennessee Williams, who won a Pulitzer Prize for both A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

By Adam Ross | June 3, 2016

June 3, 2016 In the fourth of a nine-essay series commemorating the centennial year of the Pulitzer Prizes, novelist Adam Ross considers the lasting legacy of Tennessee Williams’s two Pulitzer-winning plays, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Home Country

Novelist Amy Greene reflects on James Agee’s effort in A Death in the Family to tell something true in fiction

By Amy Greene | May 27, 2016

May 27, 2016 In the third of a nine-essay series commemorating the centennial year of the Pulitzer Prizes, novelist Amy Greene reflects on the lasting legacy of James Agee’s A Death in the Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1958, three years after Agee’s own death.

Praise Song

On the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Roots, poet Nikki Giovanni remembers the hope Alex Haley offered at a perilous time

By Nikki Giovanni | May 20, 2016

May 20, 2016 In the second of a nine-essay series commemorating the centennial year of the Pulitzer Prizes, poet Nikki Giovanni reflects on the enduring legacy of Alex Haley’s Roots, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977.

An Antidote to Political Venom

For Congressman Jim Cooper, the cure to this year’s political demagoguery is a good dose of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men

By Jim Cooper | May 13, 2016

May 13, 2016 In the first of a nine-essay series commemorating the centennial year of the Pulitzer Prizes, U.S. Representative Jim Cooper reflects on the political relevance of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1947.

Kicking and Punching and Straining for the Sky

Jim Ridley—Nashville Scene editor and passionate champion of literature—died on Friday at age fifty

By Margaret Renkl | April 11, 2016

April 10, 2016 Jim Ridley’s love for Middle Tennessee, especially the arts in Middle Tennessee, was innate, lifelong, and absolutely unwavering. His death on April 8, 2016, left a hole this community will never fill.

Camilla and the Caterpillars

By Frances Figart, illustrated by Matt Brass
Smokies Life
68 pages
$14.95

A young girl’s encounter with an extraordinary caterpillar in the Great Smoky Mountains leads her and her family on a quest to plant a national park right in their own backyard.

This environmentally themed chapter book for ages 6 through 11 introduces young readers to important ecological concepts including habitat loss and the interdependence of native species and offers a compelling grassroots solution through native-plant gardening that invites anyone to take part in addressing the growing biodiversity crisis.

~the publisher