September 22, 2011 Amazon, my relationship with you feels like an illicit love affair because, I suppose, it sort of is. I want you, but I hate myself for it. I hide our relationship from my friends. You understand my needs—and happily meet them—and you anticipate my desires, teasing me with what else you can offer. But it’s time to confront the inconvenient truth: I’m cheating with a cheater.
September 8, 2011 Near the end of his writing life George Scarbrough (1915-2008) used an alter ego, writing in the voice of the legendary eighth-century Chinese poet Han-shan, whose poems were simple, direct, and frank, never failing to call attention to the flaws in society as he saw them. Writing in the voice of Han-shan gave Scarbrough the means to speak directly about the social abuses he saw around him but could not address so clearly in his own first-person voice. “At the Last Festival” appears in Under the Lemon Tree, a new, posthumously published collection of Scarbrough’s Han-shan poems. In this essay Robert Cumming, the book’s editor, explains the significance of Han-shan to Scarbrough. He will also discuss George Scarbrough and his work at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
August 1, 2011 Wilmer Mills, 41, a Tennessee poet with ties to Sewanee and Chattanooga, died on June 25 of liver cancer. He leaves behind a wife, two young children, and many family members and dear friends. Among them is poet Jeff Hardin, his friend and writing partner of two decades. Within twenty-hours of Mills’s passing, Hardin wrote this remembrance.
July 28, 2011 Clarksville owes its place in literary geography primarily to its associations with Robert Penn Warren, but it has much more to recommend to the writing community than name-dropping historical markers: the Clarksville Writers’ Conference, now in its seventh year, keeps Clarksville’s literary spirit alive with top-notch faculty and eager attendees.
July 21, 2011 Fresh from sold-out shows in New York City and an unprecedented award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Minton Sparks continues to pursue a literary art form she invented from scratch. Now this genre-defying performance poet, songwriter, and novelist—whose fans and collaborators include Dorothy Allison, Marshall Chapman, and John Prine—is back home in Nashville, but already she’s got her eye on Broadway.
July 7, 2011 Founded six years ago by author Silas House, then Lincoln Memorial University’s writer-in-residence, the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival is packed with lectures; workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; readings by teachers as well as students; a play; and multiple concerts. This year, Chapter 16’s Sarah Norris was there, and sends this report from Harrogate.
