“Family life seems given to a kind of emotional suspense, which in no way feels less tense or compelling than other kinds of suspense.” Prior to his November 7 reading at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Bret Anthony Johnston talks about creativity, collusion with imaginary characters, and his acclaimed novel, Remember Me Like This.
Bren Owen has an unusual gift: he can create exact reproductions of maps from memory. Bren’s creator, Memphis-based author Barry Wolverton, has a similar gift for creating worlds, though he didn’t come to recognize his own talent until much later. Wolverton will read from The Dragon’s Gate at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on November 3 at 6:30 p.m.
Ashley Crownover invites the ghost of Hank Williams to guide children on a tour of Nashville’s haunted spots in her new picture book, Nashville Boo! She will haunt Nashville’s East Side Story herself with a special Halloween party and book-signing on October 29 at 5 p.m.
How do children around the world live? It’s more than a little bit daunting to tackle that question in a picture book for children, but that’s precisely what Kate DePalma and Tessa Strickland do, and with success, in The Barefoot Book of Children.
In Just Around Midnight, Jack Hamilton describes how great artists such as Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, and the Rolling Stones crossed the race line in their music, even as the culture was separating “rock” and “soul” into separate genres. The Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis will host a conversation and book signing with Hamilton on October 27 at 7 p.m.
Beth Macy’s Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South tells the tale of young African-American boys taken from their sharecropper family in Virginia and made into a circus sideshow that toured the world. Macy will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16. Festival events are free and open to the public.
