Editor's Note
One of the mixed blessings of this digital age is that there are wonderful stories posted online every day, and only a tiny fraction of them ever reach a large audience. We rarely share such stories from Tennessee writers in the Chapter 16 newsletter, but two caught our eye this past week that deserve a mention.
One of our regular contributors, David Wesley Williams, wrote a fond, funny remembrance of his greyhound Hunter on his Substack, South Bound. “He especially enjoyed beer,” David writes. “Not that we offered it. He’d just see an unwatched cup and go for it, with tongue for days. He’d sometimes belch in your face afterward; it’s the shamelessness of it that impressed me the most.”
On his Facebook page, MTSU Professor Emeritus Leon Alligood posted a eulogy of a different sort for the cooling tower of the abandoned Hartsville nuclear plant, which was demolished on Thursday. He recalls initially being unnerved by the tower’s looming presence in the landscape, and writes, “Over the decades, my perceptions changed, however. I eventually became accustomed to the concrete hulk, thinking of it as a benign giant sleeping in my homeland. On the way to the Pig for milk and butter, I’d always turn to look. Sometimes I waved.” The post is an unexpected and haunting depiction of loss.
Today at Chapter 16, Sean Kinch reviews Lay Your Armor Down, the latest novel by Michael Farris Smith. “The novel’s morality scale tips decisively toward the transgressive: pure evil definitely exists, whereas goodness survives only where it’s deeply alloyed with sin,” Sean writes. In a lighter vein, Faye Jones reviews David Levithan’s novel Songs for Other People’s Weddings, which features songs by Swedish musician Jens Lekman. And Jane Marcellus reviews Amanda Uhle’s memoir Destroy This House, an account of Uhle’s unsettled 1980s childhood.
News Roundup
- A prose poem by Nikki Giovanni appeared at Literary Hub.
- The Shape of Wonder by Alan Lightman and Martin Rees was reviewed in The Wall Street Journal.
- Eliana Ramage was discussed To the Moon and Back with WPLN in Nashville.
- Knox Small Press Fest will be held at Emporium Arts Center in Knoxville on October 4-5.
- Smokies Life is accepting applications for the Steve Kemp Writer’s Residency through November 1.
