Q & A | Chapter 16

Responding to the Beauty of a Broken World

By Amaryllis Lyle

February 28, 2013

February 28, 2013 Terry Tempest Williams was fifty-four years old when she began writing her newest memoir, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice, a book she began in response to her own mother’s death at age fifty-four. In it she tells the story of finding her mother’s journals—all blank—and contemplates the place of silence in a writer’s life. Williams will discuss When Women Were Birds at Parnassus Booksellers in Nashville on March 6 at 6:30 p.m.

Responding to the Beauty of a Broken World

Life After Pi

By Fernanda Moore

February 26, 2013

February 26, 2013 Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, was a blockbuster in every sense of the word: it spent fifty-seven weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, won the 2002 Man Booker Prize as well as a host of other international literary prizes, was translated into forty languages, and has sold more than seven million copies. Martel will give a lecture at the Nashville Public Library on March 2 at 3 p.m. as the kickoff event for Nashville Reads, a partnership between the library, the office of Mayor Karl Dean, Humanities Tennessee, Parnassus Books, Friends of the Library, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and the Nashville Public Library Foundation. Martel’s reading is the first event in a series of activities, including a screening of the film Life of Pi, in a citywide reading campaign that extends through April 13. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are available in advance by clicking here.

Reading City

By Susannah Felts

February 26, 2013

February 26, 2013 Last year saw the launch of the Nashville Reads program, which opened with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a classic work of dystopian literature. This year Life of Pi by Yann Martel has been named the city’s “one book” selection, and a season of discussions and events pegged to the book will kick off with a reading and signing by Martel at the Nashville Public Library on March 2 at 3 p.m. Prior to the event, Karl Dean, mayor of Nashville, answered questions from Chapter 16 about his hopes for the citywide reading initiative.

Writing About Home By Leaving It

By Courtney M. Santo

February 19, 2013

February 19, 2013 Wiley Cash’s debut novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, explores the aftermath of a tragedy: the death of an autistic boy at an evangelical healing service. Cash has said that the book’s lush Southern setting is a direct result of the longing he felt for home when he was living away from it. Wiley Cash will have two public events in Tennessee: on February 21 at 6 p.m. at The Booksellers and Laurelwood in Memphis, he will discuss A Land More Kind Than Home in a live interview with Courtney Miller Santo, author of The Roots of the Olive Tree. On April 20 at 1 p.m., he will give a reading at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville. Both events are free and open to the public.

Matter of Heart

By Sarah Norris

February 11, 2013

February 11, 2013 David Huddle, author of seven story collections, three novels, seven volumes of poetry, and a book of advice for writers, holds the 2012-13 Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence at Austin Peay State University. Now seventy-one, he recently answered questions from Chapter 16 about a lifetime spent writing “narratives” in a variety of forms, how teaching has improved his own work, and why Philip Roth will probably write another novel. On February 12 at 7:30 p.m., Huddle will read from his 2011 novel, Nothing Can Make Me Do This, in Room 303 of the Morgan University Center at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. The event is free and open to the public.

If He Makes It Through December

By Stephen Usery

February 1, 2013

February 1, 2013 Chapter 16 is delighted to announce that Stephen Usery is joining the site as a regular podcast contributor. Usery is the legendary host of WYPL’s, Book Talk”, an author-interview program sponsored by the Memphis Public Library, and Mysterypod, his own weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors of mysteries, thrillers, and crime fiction. In today’s podcast, Usery talks with George Saunders about his new book, Tenth of December, which The New York Times called “the best book you’ll read this year.”