Features | Chapter 16

The Magazine at the Corner of Second and Church

By Tina LoTufo

December 10, 2012

December 10, 2012 In May 2011, Roy Burkhead was hit by a car at the intersection of Church Street and 2nd Avenue in downtown Nashville. (He was not seriously injured.) In many people, such an experience might spark musings on mortality, but for Burkhead it sparked the idea for a literary journal. “This event forced me to pause and look around,” he says. “I was interested to realize just how many different aspects of Nashville were represented from this particular spot of town. Maybe it was the impact of the bumper, but I started to ponder that this specific spot could work as a great metaphor, a virtual location in this actual city.” One year later, he published the first issue of 2nd & Church.

A Brain on Fire

By Tina LoTufo

October 25, 2012

October 25, 2012 Mem Fox believes passionately that a good book has the power to move a reader “profoundly, one way or another—to laughter or tears, horror or delight, disgust or dismay, fascination or fright. If a book makes children laugh, cry, squeal, shiver, or wriggle and jiggle in some way, it takes up residence in their hearts and stays there.” Inspired by decades of experience as an educator, an award-winning children’s book author, and a parent, Fox considers her most important role to be crusading for the importance of reading aloud to young children, which she believes is an absolutely essential component in a child’s healthy development. On November 5 at 6:15 p.m., Mem Fox will appear at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series. The event is free and open to the public.

Telling Stories in Cowan

By Tina LoTufo

August 13, 2012

August 13, 2012 On a sunny July day in the tiny town of Cowan, Tennessee (population: 1,700), forty-nine booksellers from twelve states and Canada recently gathered to buy, sell, and trade at the third annual Tennessee Antiquarian Book Fair, sponsored by the Tennessee Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association. Association president Tom McGee, a Cowan resident and local bookstore owner, proudly described the event as “the only major antiquarian book fair in America that takes place in a small town.”

Telling the Truth—with Hospitality

By Beth Waltemath

July 16, 2012

July 16, 2012 On June 7, 2012, Lipscomb University in Nashville welcomed more than 325 scholars and participants to the thirty-first annual Christian Scholars’ Conference. Since 2007, Lipscomb has expanded the scope of the conference, opening it to broad interdisciplinary and interfaith conversation. “As far as the larger cultural dialogue, this conference is right in the middle of it,” says Kathy Pulley, professor of religion at Missouri State University and a member of the CSC board. This year Chapter 16 was on hand for three days packed with internationally recognized speakers, academic panels, and great catering.

Are We Nearing the End of the Print Age?

By John Egerton

July 13, 2012

In 1942, when I was a rambunctious lad of seven, I was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The prescription for my recovery called for naps at ten and two, bedtime at seven—and plenty of rest in between. Bad news for a kid, but my mother was as resourceful as she was wise. “Let’s publish a newspaper,” she said. “I’ll teach you how to make stories that we can type up and print on the mimeo.” Thus began my introduction to reading and writing as self-generated pleasures, to the painful necessities of editing and rewriting, to the messy fun of putting ink to paper, and to the intoxicating thrill of seeing front-page news under my byline. The awe and wonder eventually turned to pride of craft, then drudgery, then boredom—but I have never forgotten the sense of empowerment I got from that first opportunity to learn adult skills.

Tasty Reading

By Paul V. Griffith

July 5, 2012

July 5, 2012 In a culture filled with so-called food porn, it’s perhaps surprising that Nashville’s Alimentum: The Literature of Food is the country’s first literary journal dedicated exclusively to themes of table, kitchen, market, and sustenance. In its pages—and in a revamped website, launching today—editor Paulette Licitra invites readers to consider food as a savory (or sweet) organizing principle, which writers can apply to themes as wide as human experience itself.