Editor’s Notes

As many of you know, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) recently targeted the National Endowment for the Humanities, and their drastic cuts to the agency include rescinding existing grants to all the state humanities councils, including Humanities Tennessee. This funding is essential to Humanities Tennessee’s many programs, including the Southern Festival of Books, the Young Writers’ Workshops, and Chapter 16. We’re asking…

Today at Chapter 16, Sara Beth West reviews Happy Land, the latest novel by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, inspired by the Kingdom of the Happy Land, a real 19th-century community founded by formerly enslaved people on the border of North and South Carolina. Perkins-Valdez describes her vision of Happy Land as “both a literal and metaphorical manifestation of a people’s desire to rise into…

We teased spring in the newsletter a few weeks ago, but it’s officially arrived now — so here are a few more spring-into-summer happenings to keep in mind: Independent Bookstore Day happens on April 26, and indie stores across Tennessee have special plans to welcome customers that day. Check out your favorite local shop and make plans to…

The authors for the 2024 TN Writers | TN Stories event series have been announced, and it’s another stellar lineup this year. The series will kick off on April 12 with Keith B. Wood discussing his book The Memphis Red Sox and it will wrap up in October with Kevin Wilson and his forthcoming novel, Run for the Hills. The roster also includes John P.…

The Porch, Nashville’s nonprofit literary center, will be holding its annual fundraiser on May 2, and this year’s featured authors are Tennessee’s own Mary Laura Philpott and Margaret Renkl. On May 3, Memphis will welcome Roxane Gay as one of the keynote speakers for this year’s Bookstock author festival. (Check out the news roundup below for a conversation between Gay and poet Saeed Jones.) Today…

Celebrated poet, novelist, playwright, and cultural critic Ishmael Reed will visit Chattanooga on March 15 as a featured speaker for the Chattanooga Public Library’s Culture on 4 series. Reed, who was born in Chattanooga, first gained a reputation as an original, uncompromising literary voice with his early novels Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969) and Mumbo Jumbo (1972), which was a finalist for the National Book Award.…