Nashville writers react to the news that Ann Patchett and Karen Hayes are planning to open a new bookstore
June 13, 2011 When bestselling novelist Ann Patchett announced that she and a business partner, former Random House sales rep Karen Hayes, would soon be opening a new bookstore in Nashville, the city’s writers responded with joy:
Read moreGallatin poet Elizabeth McClellan retells the story of Frankenstein’s second monster—and earns a Rhysling nomination in the process
June 3, 2011 “Anything So Utterly Destroyed” by Elizabeth McClellan, a Gallatin-based poet and University of Memphis law student, has been nominated for a 2011 Rhysling Award by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. The Rhysling is a prize given to the best science-fiction, fantasy, or horror poem published during the previous year.
Read moreFor poet Khaled Mattawa, a resurgence in music is a sure sign of the coming freedom in Libya
June 1, 2011 At thirteen, an age when many kids are developing the musical preferences they will carry with them for a lifetime, Khaled Mattawa emigrated to the U.S., eventually graduating from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga and going on to graduate studies in creative writing at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Now an acclaimed poet, Mattawa left his native Libya after Muammar Qaddafi seized power, but he carried Libya’s music with him.
Read morePBS airs Wyatt Prunty’s response to the The News Hour‘s photos of service personnel lost each week in Iraq and Afghanistan
May 31, 2011 Last night in commemoration of Memorial Day, PBS closed The News Hour with a feature on Sewanee poet Wyatt Prunty, whose poem “The Returning Dead” was inspired by the program’s nightly “honor roll” of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The program first aired in 2006.) Prunty is no stranger to combat—he served in Vietnam—though he claims no heroics: “I was a nearsighted gunnery officer, and I don’t think I hurt anyone,” he explains in an introduction to his reading of the poem. It begins this way:
Read moreA new sitcom based on the etiquette books by John Bridges will be CBS’s lead comedy for fall
May 27, 2011 Last February, Chapter 16 reported that David Hornsby, writer and executive producer of the FX series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, was producing a comedy pilot based on the bestselling etiquette guides by Nashville-based writer John Bridges. Now CBS has announced that How to Be a Gentleman will be its lead sitcom this fall.
Read moreTwo Tennessee writers and a Tennessee bookstore win prizes at BookExpo America
May 25, 2011 Many literary awards ceremonies are held in connection with BookExpo America, the annual trade show of the North American publishing industry, and this year Tennessee made a strong showing at both the Audies, which honors a variety of titles in audiobook format, and at the Children’s Book and Author Breakfast, hosted by the Women’s National Book Association, where this year’s Pannell Awards—one to a general bookstore and one to a children’s specialty store—are announced.
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