A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

To Be a Writer, and To Live in the World

November 14, 2011 It’s not every day that attendees at a poetry reading are asked whether they mind being filmed by an MTV camera crew, but that’s what happened at the opening event of last month’s Meacham Writers’ Workshop in Chattanooga. The reading was held at Chattanooga State Community College, where one of the stars of MTV’s reality show “Teen Mom” is a student. It was an unusual beginning to a three-day conference that is itself unique. The Meacham workshop is held twice each year, primarily on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Bigger, Better, and Full of Books

November 10, 2011 Maybe this is simply five months of deprivation talking, but walking into Barnes & Noble at Vanderbilt for the first time feels a bit like visiting the Sistine Chapel. It is, frankly, grand. The new campus store is only 7,000 square feet larger than the old Rand location, but the place feels, for many reasons, about a million times bigger. Inside the new Nashville bookstore, 67,000 trade titles are waiting, along with a total of seventy-nine employees to help readers find new books they’ll love.

Guitar Man

November 1, 2011 Brad Paisley is often regarded by critics and tastemakers as a bridge between old-style country music and new. His songs—he writes or co-writes many of them himself—offer sharp, catchy melodies that are also well-crafted, accessible lyrics that are also artful. And when you listen to any of his cuts, the guitar parts always stand out. Today Chapter 16 talks with Paisley about his new memoir, Diary of a Player, the story behind the songwriter.

Book Excerpt: Brad Paisley's Diary of a Player

November 1, 2011 I am standing on a stage. In front of me is a sea of people, all very close together, and most of them are staring somewhat hopefully in my general direction. Some are wearing T-shirts and jeans, miniskirts, and tank tops, ball caps, cowboy hats, and camouflage. And other than the people facing the wrong way wearing the yellow vests labeled SECURITY and a few facing the wrong way who are too drunk to know better, this mob is expecting something from me.

Remembering Rebecca

October 20, 2011 Rebecca Bain’s voice was with us in intimate spaces: inside our cars, around our kitchen tables, coming from the clock radio beside the bed in the morning. Hers was the cheerfully cajoling voice that led the radio pledge drive, that shared the morning news, and that delighted in announcing a new literary discovery.

Language and Love

October 14, 2011 We’re coming to the Southern Festival of Books to spend time with people who create for us worlds only they can imagine, or who make us see in a more brilliant light the world we are forced to occupy. We’ll be there because we choose to inhabit their worlds, ethereal worlds that hang somewhere between language and love. We want to see these writers face to face, to learn the color of their eyes, check out their mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, confirm our suspicions, shake their hands, and have them read to us. The 2011 Southern Festival of Books will be held this weekend, October 14-16, at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

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