Q & A | Chapter 16

Out of the Valley

By Ed Tarkington

February 24, 2012

February 24, 2012 Josh Weil’s fearless introspection and his gift for creating layers of complexity in his characters permeate the pages of his award-winning first collection of novellas, The New Valley. Set in the rural environs of the New River Valley between Virginia and West Virginia, Weil’s stories are written in graceful, haunting prose that masterfully evokes the beautiful but isolated and unforgiving nature of rural AppalachiaOn February 27 at 7 p.m., Weil will give a reading in the Hodges Library Auditorium on the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee. Click here for more details.

Fighting a Monstrous Injustice

By Chris Scott

February 21, 2012

February 21, 2012 As a young man in frontier Illinois, Abraham Lincoln became convinced that slavery was wrong. How to end the injustice, and whether to treat the former slaves as equal citizens, were questions Lincoln wrestled with for most of his life. These struggles are the subject of Eric Foner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. On February 23 at 6:30 p.m., Foner will give the Belle McWilliams Lecture in American History in the UC Theater at the University of Memphis.

The Twang and Flavor of Speech

By Jeff Hardin

February 17, 2012

February 15, 2012 Novelist Ron Rash notes that for “twenty-five years Jeff Daniel Marion has eschewed poetic fashion and poetic posturing, going his own way, making poems that are confident enough to speak quietly to us, even gently,” and former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser calls Marion a “master of guileless simplicity.” Marion will read from his work on February 20 at 7 p.m. in the Hodges Library Auditorium at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

The Search for Meaning

By Beth Waltemath

February 16, 2012

February 16, 2012 For Douglas A. Knight and Amy-Jill Levine, Vanderbilt University professors who have collaborated on a new book called The Meaning of the Bible, “the Bible is not a book of answers. It may be, however, a book that helps its readers ask the right questions, and then provides materials that can spark diverse answers.”

What a Poem Leaves Out

By Pablo Tanguay

February 15, 2012

February 15, 2012 Marvin Bell has written twenty-three books of poems and taught for more than forty years at The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, but he is hardly slowing down. In 2011 alone, he published a new book of poems (Vertigo: The Living Dead Man Poems), a children’s book (A Primer about the Flag), and a collaboration with the photographer Nathan Lyons (Whiteout). He also frequently performs his poems with musicians, including jazz bassist Glen Moore and his own son, the Tennessee-based singer/songwriter Nathan Bell. Marvin Bell will read from his work on February 20 at 4:30 p.m. in the Tom Jackson Building on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. The event is free and open to the public.

Critical Reading

By Paul V. Griffith

February 10, 2012

February 10, 2011 According to John Kaltner, most Americans have no idea what’s in the Qur’an, Islam’s sacred text. That doesn’t stop many of them from having an opinion, however. The Muslim faith is regularly denigrated as inherently sexist, violent, and inflexible. In an effort to correct such misunderstandings, Kaltner, a professor of Muslim-Christian relations at Rhodes College in Memphis, has written Introducing the Qur’an for Today’s Reader, a critical reading of the Qur’an that focuses on some of the text’s more controversial themes.

“A searing sci-fi thriller about a woman reckoning with her past to solve a series of sudden and inexplicable deaths in the face of a coming apocalypse — from the Compton Crook Award–winning author of The Space Between Worlds.”

~ the publisher