January 20, 2015 Jonathan Miles has a gift for transforming life’s base materials into literary gold. His novels, Dear American Airlines (2008) and Want Not (2013), address dark, potentially dispiriting themes with a deft, comedic touch. Miles will give a free public reading at the University of Tennessee’s John C. Hodges Library in Knoxville on January 26, 2015, at 7 p.m.
January 12, 2015 For more than thirty years, Tim O’Brien has been regarded as one of the definitive voices of the Vietnam War. A literary trailblazer, he melds fact and fiction in texts that are both starkly realistic and surreal. O’Brien will be in Nashville on January 17, 2015, to share the stage with Tim O’Brien, the equally legendary Nashville musician, at a special benefit in support of The Porch Writers’ Collective.
January 7, 2015 Leah Stewart, the author of four critically acclaimed novels, is a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville who has held teaching positions at both her alma mater and the University of the South in Sewanee. Stewart will return to Tennessee to give a reading in Vanderbilt’s Buttrick Hall, Room 101, on January 15, 2015, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
December 10, 2014 Katherine Paterson’s Stories of My Life is a loving look back at an extraordinary life. The Newbery- and National Book Award-winning author of children’s classics like Bridge to Terabithia, Jacob Have I Loved, and The Great Gilly Hopkins, Paterson recently answered questions from Chapter 16.
December 1, 2014 Sean Brock used to swear he’d never write a book. The acclaimed chef and owner of Husk was too busy making food the farm-to-table way, relying on improvisation and in-season ingredients. Nevertheless, Brock has now released a cookbook titled Heritage, and it’s a big book, too: a foot tall and 334 pages long. He will discuss Heritage at POP Nashville on December 3, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.
November 17, 2014 Award-winning children’s author G. Neri talks with Chapter 16 about his visit to the Southern Festival of Books and the city Johnny Cash knew and loved so well. Neri’s picture-book biography of Cash, Hello, I’m Johnny Cash, is on shelves now.
