Real Work
May 17, 2010 Hang some of those tools on the wall, he told me, some of those chainsaws or chisels or big yard forks that would hold seventy pounds of rock in a single scoop. Hang ’em up high so you can see ’em real good, he told me, after you finally get yourself an easy job, and every time you feel like griping, take a long, hard look.
Read moreVanderbilt grad student Stephanie Pruitt garners national recognition
May 14, 2010 As she prepared to receive her M.F.A. degree in creative writing from Vanderbilt this month, Nashville native Stephanie Pruitt found herself unexpectedly listed—along with the likes of Rita Dove and Gwendolyn Brooks—as one of Essence magazine’s “Forty Favorite Poets.” She spoke with Chapter 16 about the national recognition, and about her dedication to poetry.
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For kids who struggle to read, therapy dogs can be the best teachers
On an early spring day, a visitor comes to Nashville’s Julia Green Elementary School. Her name is Emma, and she sits on the floor on a lime green blanket, in front of low shelves packed with books. Before long, a first-grader named Meghan joins Emma and reads her a story, finding her way slowly but confidently through the unfamiliar words. How does a dog help a child learn to read? Rachel McPherson, author of Every Dog Has a Gift: True Stories of Dogs Who Bring Hope & Healing into Our Lives, will be at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on April 13 at 7 p.m. to discuss her book about therapy dogs like Emma.
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Alan Lightman—scientist, essayist, novelist, and poet—takes on the big questions
Scientists who write are no rarity, but Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams, is virtually unique in combining a significant career as a research scientist with an equally significant career as a writer of literary fiction. Most people experience a certain tension between their logical and affective selves, between cold rationality and a more intuitive, artistic way of interpreting the world, but the Memphis native seems to have escaped that process, giving his intellect free rein in both realms. He is credited with discoveries that have wide application in astronomy and astrophysics, and he has published a dozen books, including several collections of his essays and four bestselling, highly regarded novels.
Read moreAlan Lightman recalls the Memphis Cotton Carnival of 1955
Alan Lightman has explored the mysteries of both science and spirit in his fiction, taking readers from Einstein’s alternate worlds (Einstein’s Dreams) to a ghostly encounter in a mortuary (Ghost). In Screening Room (due from Pantheon in early 2011), Lightman will venture into his own childhood memories of Memphis during the tumultuous 1950s and 60s: “This book is about Memphis and the South in the 1950s and 1960s; my family and the family movie business; the music, food, and culture of Memphis; racism in Memphis and the South; Boss Crump, Elvis, Martin Luther King, etc.,” he writes. In this excerpt, the opening chapter of the fictionalized memoir, he provides a glimpse—though a child’s innocent eyes—of the old social order of a city poised on the brink of change.
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Allen Tate’s wife, Helen, remembers her late husband and discusses his role in the Fugitive Movement
Poet, novelist, and essayist Allen Tate (1899-1979) was one of twentieth-century America’s most important literary voices. Born in Kentucky and a graduate of Vanderbilt, Tate was a central figure in the circle of Nashville writers who came to be known as the Fugitives—and later the Southern Agrarians—a group which included John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, Donald Davidson, and Merrill Moore. After her husband’s death in 1979, Helen Tate settled in Nashville, where she continues to work and volunteer. As Tate’s widow, she is one of the few living links to a critical moment in American literary history and a reminder of Nashville’s central role in the emergence of modern poetry. She recently spoke with Chapter 16 about her husband and his literary legacy.
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