Features | Chapter 16

In Shape

A new gallery show at the Nashville Public Library puts poetry on display

By Joe Nolan | August 11, 2010

August 11, 2010 People apparently started writing shaped poetry—in which words are arranged to create a picture—as soon as they began writing verse. An exhibit at the main Nashville Public Library includes examples of the practice dating from ancient times to the present. Boasting thirty prints of poems by E.E. Cummings, Lewis Carroll, Guillaume Apollinaire, Andre Breton, Gertrude Stein, and others, it’s a compelling collection of work that occupies a space where poetry and painting overlap.

Landscapes of Her Heart

Elizabeth Spencer, one of the South’s greatest writers, discusses her work, her years in Tennessee, and her friendship with Eudora Welty

By Maria Browning | July 13, 2010

July 13, 2010 After more than sixty years of acclaim as both a novelist and short-story writer, Mississippi native Elizabeth Spencer is still pursuing her craft. In anticipation of her reading at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, she spoke with Chapter 16 about her remarkable body of work. Spencer will read at the Bairnwick Women’s Center on the Sewanee campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Putting the Fan in Fantasy

Graphic novelist Scott Christian Sava has ten million readers to keep happy every day

By Susannah Felts | June 25, 2010

June 25, 2010 After Franklin, Tennessee, graphic novelist Scott Christian Sava accomplished his childhood dream of illustrating an issue of the Spider-Man comic, he set his sights on creating an epic fantasy narrative of his own. The result, The Dreamland Chronicles, is now one of the most popular web comics in existence, read daily by more than ten million readers worldwide. And that’s not even counting the audience for his books.

Across the Age Barrier

Poets from Youth Speaks Nashville add their voices to Nashville’s literary census

By Maria Browning | June 1, 2010

June 1, 2010 Youth Speaks Nashville gives teens the opportunity to learn and express themselves through spoken-word poetry. Some of its talented young poets will add their voices to Nashville Now: 2010 Spoken Word Census, a portrait of the city in poetry, prose, and song. The three-day series of events will take place at the Darkhorse Theater at 7:30 p.m. on June 3, 4, and 5.

Catcher in the National Spotlight

Siori Koerner’s letter to J.D. Salinger wins the Murfreesboro eighth-grader top honors in the Letters About Literature contest

By Susannah Felts | May 31, 2010

May 31, 2010 It began as just another school essay, with a due date for a grade. The assignment: to choose a book that speaks to you—any book you wish—and write a letter to its author, explaining how the story sheds new light on your own life experiences. Siori Koerner’s letter to J.D. Salinger ultimately won its author, an eighth grader from Murfreesboro, top honors in this year’s Letters About Literature contest, a national program sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

Writers’ Work

Sonny Brewer discusses the Southern work ethic, the future of the book, and editing a new collection of essays by writers about their day jobs

By Michael Ray Taylor | May 17, 2010

May 17, 2010 If anyone ever had a finger on the pulse of Southern literature, that person is Sonny Brewer. The Alabama native is the author of four acclaimed novels and editor of the series Stories from the Blue Moon Café: Anthologies of Southern Writers. But perhaps his closest connections to the living literature of the South are Over the Transom Bookstore in Fairhope, Alabama, which he owns, and the nonprofit Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, which he chairs. All of this connectivity to working Southern writers has led Brewer to a new kind of anthology: one about Southern writers at work. As in working at actual, sweaty jobs. Chapter 16 recently spoke with Brewer about the new book, The Railroad as Art: Southern Writers and Day Jobs, to be published in October by M.P. Publishing.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly