Q & A | Chapter 16

Styron's Choice

By Fernanda Moore

August 5, 2011

August 5, 2011 Alexandra Styron, the youngest child of William Styron, was born the year his celebrated novel The Confessions of Nat Turner was published. In her own new memoir, Reading My Father, she aims to merge the tale of her childhood, one that was alternately charmed and cursed, with a carefully researched exegesis of her famous father’s life and work. Styron will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. She recently answered questions from Chapter 16.

A Blues Man's Biography

By Morey Hill

August 3, 2011

August 3, 2011 Philip Ratcliffe was enthralled with the music of Mississippi John Hurt from the moment he first heard one of Hurt’s recordings in 1970. After a trip to Mississippi in 2003, Ratcliffe decided to document Hurt’s life. It took six years of research and writing, but Ratcliffe finally completed the first biography of the legendary blues artist. Mississippi John Hurt: His Life, His Times, His Blues chronicles the man’s musical career and captures his warm, unaffected character. Ratcliffe will discuss and sign his biography at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on August 4 at 6 p.m.

Don't Read This

By Fernanda Moore

July 29, 2011

July 29, 2011 Ask any grade-school kid an innocent question about a Pseudonymous Bosch novel, and prepare to be stonewalled: Bosch’s books lure the reader into a conspiracy of silence, in which the author, characters, and plot are all secrets. In fact, Bosch’s entire Secret Series—the fifth and final installment, You Have to Stop This, will be published on September 20—is the apotheosis of what might be called the “reverse psychology” school of children’s literature: warning kids away from the dangerous book they’re presently holding is a surefire way to get them to crack its spine. Pseudonymous Bosch will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

Werewolves in the Heartland

By Tina LoTufo

July 27, 2011

July 27, 2011 This month the story of the Wolves of Mercy Falls comes to its much-anticipated conclusion. Maggie Stiefvater launched this riveting young-adult saga of humans and werewolves in the Minnesota woods in 2009 with a New York Times bestseller called Shiver. Linger followed in 2010, and the concluding volume, Forever, rounds out the trilogy. Stiefvater spins a compelling tale of humans and wolves both in love and at odds. Her characters make choices out of fear and hatred, self-sacrifice and loyalty, pain and grief. And after a while, it’s not so easy to tell the men (or women) from the beasts. On July 31 at 3 p.m., Stiefvater will read from and discuss her new book at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series.

Now in Print

By Lyda Phillips

July 26, 2011

July 26, 2011 Published as an Amazon ebook in April 2010, D.B. Henson’s mystery, Deed to Death, proved phenomenally successful. By word of tweet, Facebook, blog, and online review, the debut novel sold 100,000 copies and made the Best of 2010 Kindle Customer Favorites list, which includes the likes of Stieg Larson and Laura Lippman. The Nashville author’s success got the attention of uber-agent Noah Lukeman, who offered to represent her. He sold Deed to Death to Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone Books, and the rest is … well, you know the rest. Henson will sign Deed to Death on July 30 at 2 p.m. at Mysteries & More in Nashville. She will also appear at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 14-16.

An All-American Movement

By Clay Risen

July 25, 2011

July 25, 2011 Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington, is widely considered among the greatest speeches in American history and a high point of the civil-rights movement. But its deserved fame has long obscured the hundreds of thousands of people who also participated in the march: black teenagers from Alabama, white ministers from Kansas, celebrities from Hollywood, and activists from Harlem, all of them gathered in a peaceful demonstration for equal rights unlike anything ever seen in America. In Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington, newly out in paperback, Charles Euchner, a Chattanooga native and graduate of Vanderbilt University, has written the story of that day from the perspective of these important, if anonymous, participants in the march. Chapter 16 recently spoke with him by phone.