Editor’s Notes

It’s a little difficult in these hot, humid days to fantasize about wandering around Bicentennial Mall in the crisp air of an October weekend, but the 2026 Southern Festival of Books will be here before you know it. This week, Chapter 16 considers a book by one of this year’s festival authors, poet Asa Drake. Reviewer sam long writes that Maybe the Body is…

Chapter 16 returns from hiatus today, and we’ve got a busy season of book coverage ahead. But first we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the loss of two members of the Tennessee literary community. The state’s longtime poet laureate, Margaret Britton Vaughn, known to her friends as Maggi, died on June 27. Serenity Gerbman, who directs Humanities…

Today at Chapter 16, Lauren Nossett answers a few questions about her latest thriller, Indie Darling, which sends a Dolly Parton-loving private detective searching for a missing singer-songwriter. Nossett tells Sarah Norris that the novel, despite its dark and unsettling side, is “a love letter to Nashville.”  David Wesley Williams reviews Stranded in the Future, the second memoir from “pop surrealist” Robyn Hitchcock. “Hitchcock…

The initial author list for this year’s Southern Festival of Books has been released, and it’s a varied, stellar lineup that includes Margaret Renkl, Claudia Rankine, Ayad Akhtar, Ann Patchett, Ben Fountain, and many more. See the announcement here and the full list at the festival website. For Chapter 16’s ongoing coverage of festival books, go here to find it…

This Thursday, June 18, is the final day of Humanities Tennessee‘s spring fund drive. There’s still time to donate and support HT’s programs, including Chapter 16 and the Southern Festival of Books. And speaking of the festival, the Author Reveal Party on June 18 is full, but folks who’d like to attend can go to the Eventbrite page and join the waitlist.  We’re…

This week, Chapter 16 looks at three very different books that explore big questions. In her review of Susannah Felts’ new novel, The Come Apart, Bianca Sass writes that the protagonist, an aspiring musician, struggles with an “age-old and universal” dilemma: “Is it enough to make art for the sake of self-expression, or is external recognition what endows art (and life)…