Q & A | Chapter 16

Bidding Artemis Farewell

By Lyda Phillips

July 10, 2012

July 10, 2012 Eoin Colfer burst onto the middle-grade fantasy scene in 2001 with Artemis Fowl, a high-energy thriller starring a young criminal mastermind from an aristocratic Irish family, who kidnaps a ferocious fairy cop and holds her for ransom. Now the series comes to an end with its eighth installment, The Last Guardian. Colfer will discuss the culmination of his bestselling series on July 18 at 4 p.m. at the Nashville Public Library, as part of the Salon@615 series. The event is free and open to the public.

Pushing Boundaries

By Sarah Norris

July 3, 2012

July 3, 2012 Sapphire’s first novel, Push (on which the Oscar-winning film Precious was based), centers on an abused African-American teenager’s second pregnancy with her own father’s child. Sapphire’s second novel, The Kid, is about that kid: her second child. Sapphire will read from the book, newly released in paperback, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 10 at 6:30 p.m. She answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to the event.

“You Are Where You Come From”

By Charlotte Pence

June 26, 2012

June 26, 2012 Memphis native Don Share, poet and senior editor of Poetry magazine, has recently released his third poetry collection. In Wishbone, Share energizes his well-crafted lines with wit and hard-wrestled emotional truths. Many of the poems in Wishbone reflect on the transient nature of life and our attempts to muddle our way through loss. As Share explains in an interview with Chapter 16, “We’re always using whatever strength we have to grasp things, to hold on, and sometimes to wave goodbye.”

Who Spoke for the Negro?

By Tim Boyd

June 21, 2012

May 23, 2012 In 2008, the Robert Penn Warren Center at Vanderbilt University held a civil-rights symposium for scholars and for those who participated in the movement. The event commemorated both the fortieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and the unveiling of a new, digitized collection of interviews with civil-rights leaders conducted by Warren during the 1960s. The Warren Center has now launched an updated version of the site, and Chapter 16 recently spoke with Mona Frederick, executive director of the center, about the collection and the opportunities for research it provides.

The Canon—In Full Color

By Fernanda Moore

June 11, 2012

June 11, 2012 Russ Kick’s The Graphic Canon: Volume One: From The Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liasons is the first book in a three-volume series featuring the work of dozens of graphic artists addressing the landmarks of world literature. The results are, as the saying goes, mixed—but not in a bad way. The Graphic Canon is a glorious mash-up of not only words and images, but also high and low culture, the popular and the paradigmatic. Kick will discuss The Graphic Canon at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on June 14 at 6 p.m.

“A Nazi, a Treasure, a Murder, a Car Chase, and Two Fistfights”

By Liz Garrigan

May 31, 2012

May 31, 2012 In his new mystery, Don’t Ever Get Old, Daniel Friedman spins an engrossing tale of intrigue, but that’s only one element of what makes this acclaimed debut so notable. He also manages to write page after page of hilarious—and sometimes poignant—commentary by an octogenarian ex-cop named Buck Schatz, a Jewish guy from Memphis who finds himself on the hunt for the Nazi war criminal who nearly killed him during World War II. On June 7 at 6 p.m., Friedman will discuss Don’t Ever Get Old at the Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis.

“A Nazi, a Treasure, a Murder, a Car Chase, and Two Fistfights”

“The highlight of the book is Fields’ animal characters. Whether happy, nervous, or sad, their expressive faces are easy to read, and their feelings will be familiar to young tots. … A tender book to help little ones make sense of the emotions around prayer.”

~Kirkus Reviews