Q & A | Chapter 16

Relinquishing the Flimsy Protection of Shelter

By Charlotte Pence

March 23, 2011

March 23, 2011 Gaylord Brewer recently published his eighth collection of poems titled Give Over, Graymalkin. He has published over 800 poems in journals and anthologies such as Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Brewer is also a playwright, and his plays have been staged in New York, Chicago, Nashville, and many other cities. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Brewer is currently a professor at Middle Tennessee State University and the editor of the journal Poems & Plays. In 2009, he received the Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry from the Tennessee Arts Commission. He recently spoke with Chapter 16 about the challenge of writing in a foreign country, his advice for young poets, and the pleasure of writing rude poems.

Relinquishing the Flimsy Protection of Shelter

A Dog's Best Friend

By Joe Nolan

March 22, 2011

March 22, 2011 Robert J. Blake’s latest picture book features the tale of two best friends who’ll do anything to stay together. The protagonists of Painter and Ugly are a pair of dogs whose love for one another is nearly matched by their love of competing in Alaskan dog-sled races. Blake, who is also the book’s illustrator, immerses readers in the story of a Junior Iditarod race, a grueling test in which a group of competing teenagers push their dog-sled teams on a nearly eighty-mile trek into the Alaskan wilderness, only to complete the return run the very next day, after a night of camping in the cold with their dog teams. He recently answered questions from Chapter 16 via email.

Making the Words Disappear

By Maria Browning

March 15, 2011

March 15, 2011 Richard Bausch has won wide acclaim for his eleven novels and is regarded as a master of the contemporary short story. He talks with Chapter 16 about his newest collection of stories, Something is Out There (out next month in paperback), and about his own approach to the art of fiction. Bausch, who holds the Moss Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis, will appear at the sixteenth Biennial Conference on Southern Literature in Chattanooga April 14-16.

Architect of the Absurd

By Ed Tarkington

March 10, 2011

March 10, 2011 Few contemporary novelists can match Tom Perrotta’s gift for skewering the delusions and pretensions of suburbia. From his breakthrough novel Election, a vicious send-up of a high-school campaign for student-body president; through the acclaimed Little Children, about a stay-at-home dad’s unlikely affair with another mom; to The Abstinence Teacher, a pointed and frequently hilarious satire in which a high-school sex-education teacher butts heads with the evangelical right, Perrotta maintains a generous sympathy for the poor souls forced to navigate the calamities of suburban life. He answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to his appearance at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 17 at 7 p.m. in Wilson Hall, Room 126.

Diving In

By Sam Moxley

March 8, 2011

March 8, 2011 When Troy Chance sees a small child being thrown from a ferry into Lake Champlain, she immediately dives into the water to rescue him. The search for his family—and, later, for his kidnappers—sets off the whirlwind plot of Oak Ridge native Sara J. Henry’s debut novel, Learning to Swim. Henry will read from and sign copies of the book at 7 p.m. on March 10 at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood.

Far From Home

By Serenity Gerbman

March 2, 2011

March 2, 2011 Howard Frank Mosher spent seven years researching and writing Walking to Gatlinburg, his tenth novel, set during the Civil War. The plot of the book follows seventeen-year-old Morgan Kinneson on a journey to find his brother, a missing Union doctor. Kinneson is indeed walking to Gatlinburg, and the sometimes cruel, sometimes funny, and always fascinating people and situations he encounters along the way change him profoundly. Mosher answered questions from Chapter 16 via email just as the book was being released in paperback.