Q & A | Chapter 16

Far From Home

Howard Frank Mosher explains why he set his masterful Civil War novel in Tennessee

By Serenity Gerbman | March 2, 2011

March 2, 2011 Howard Frank Mosher spent seven years researching and writing Walking to Gatlinburg, his tenth novel, set during the Civil War. The plot of the book follows seventeen-year-old Morgan Kinneson on a journey to find his brother, a missing Union doctor. Kinneson is indeed walking to Gatlinburg, and the sometimes cruel, sometimes funny, and always fascinating people and situations he encounters along the way change him profoundly. Mosher answered questions from Chapter 16 via email just as the book was being released in paperback.

First Blood

Holly Tucker talks with Chapter 16 about the macabre history of blood transfusion

By Michael Ray Taylor | March 1, 2011

March 1, 2011 Holly Tucker will discuss and sign copies of Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution on March 2 at 11:30 a.m. in the main Nashville Public Library. The event is part of the Thinking Out of the (Lunch) Box series, a joint venture of Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Public Library. At 11:30 a.m., lunch is served. At noon, the program begins. The event is free and open to the public.

Marlboro Woman

Popular blogger Ree Drummond tells the story of her move from L.A. to Oklahoma

By Tina LoTufo | February 24, 2011

February 24, 2011 Ree Drummond’s new book, Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story, is both a memoir and the backstory to The Pioneer Woman, one of the most popular blogs on the web. Today Drummond talks with Chapter 16 about the book, which Columbia Pictures is developing as a star vehicle for Nashville native Reese Witherspoon.

Filling the Need to Know

Joyce Carol Oates talks about her new memoir

By Maria Browning | February 23, 2011

February 23, 2011 Literary titan Joyce Carol Oates is known for the extraordinary virtuosity and prolificacy of her work. In A Widow’s Story: A Memoir, she tells the story of her struggle to cope with the death of her husband of nearly fifty years. Today she answers questions from Chapter 16 about A Widow’s Story and her work as both a writer and a teacher. Oates will give a reading at Austin Peay State University on February 25 at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Beyond Domestic Fiction

There’s much more to Holly Goddard Jones’s stories than kitchen-sink realism

By Susannah Felts | February 22, 2011

February 22, 2011 Like Bobbie Ann Mason before her, Holly Goddard Jones entered the literary scene with a much-praised debut collection of stories set in her home state. Jones is no Mason redux, but in Girl Trouble she does look carefully at the Kentucky in which she was raised, tapping into veins similar to those explored by Mason. Set in the fictional small town of Roma, these stories portray with deep sensitivity the emotional injuries of men and women whose lives are etched there. On February 24 at 7 p.m., Holly Goddard Jones will read from her work in Buttrick Hall, Room 102, on the Vanderbilt University campus.

Tackling Life

In a new memoir, NFL star Michael Oher writes about life before The Blind Side

By Michael Ray Taylor | February 15, 2011

February 15, 2011 In the middle of Michael Oher’s rookie season as an offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, a big-budget Hollywood movie based on his life premiered to rave reviews, but he was too busy with football to watch it. It wasn’t until a couple of months later, after the season, that he managed to buy a ticket to The Blind Side, which starred Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, and Quinton Aaron. Oher sat down in the darkened theatre with a couple of his teammates to watch the movie, based on a 2006 book by Michael Lewis. As Oher describes the experience in his own new book, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond, co-written with sports writer Don Yeager, he reacted to the film with both bewilderment and “wounded pride.” Oher spoke with Chapter 16 prior to his signing at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on February 16 at 6 p.m.

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher