A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

A Dog's Best Friend

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.

A Dog's Best Friend

Making the Words Disappear

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.

Making the Words Disappear

Architect of the Absurd

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.

Architect of the Absurd

Diving In

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.

Diving In

Far From Home

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.

Far From Home

First Blood

March 1, 2011 Holly Tucker will discuss and sign copies of Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution on March 2 at 11:30 a.m. in the main Nashville Public Library. The event is part of the Thinking Out of the (Lunch) Box series, a joint venture of Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Public Library. At 11:30 a.m., lunch is served. At noon, the program begins. The event is free and open to the public.

First Blood

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