Editor's Note

The 2025 Southern Festival of Books is just a few days away, and we trust that everyone planning to attend has taken a minute to look over the schedule and the terrific author roster. While you’re perusing the schedule, be sure the click on the menu for the performance stage, which lists the good things on offer there, including a performance by AfricaNashville and a reading by poets laureate from cities around Tennessee — Linda Parsons, Kory Wells, Matthew Leavitt Brown, Henry L. Jones, Rhea Carmon, and Black Atticus are all scheduled to participate. 

As Chapter 16’s regular readers know, the survival of the festival was in doubt last spring after the National Endowment for the Humanities was targeted by DOGE. But individuals and organizations stepped up in a big way to make this beloved event possible, and Chapter 16 founding editor Margaret Renkl tells the story of how that effort took shape in her most recent column for The New York Times. If you’re looking for some news that will make you feel a little better about the world, Margaret delivers.

Today at the site, we’ve got Sara Beth West’s review of Gone Before Goodbye, the new thriller co-written by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben, who’ll be joined by Ann Patchett for a ticketed fundraiser at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville on October 29. All proceeds will benefit Humanities Tennessee. 

And closing out our festival coverage, we’ve got excerpts from two new collections by Tennessee poets: “Moving to Tennessee, 1944” from Connie Jordan Green’s Nameless as the Minnows and “Bluebird Dreams of Red Fox” from Feller by Denton Loving. 

News Roundup

Roy Burkhead paid fictional tribute to the Southern Festival of Books in an excerpt from his novel THE E-POSTLE. 

Tiana Clark’s Scorched Earth has now made the short list for this year’s National Book Award for Poetry. 

Chattanooga will soon have a combination bookstore and bar in The Reading Room. 

Tonya Abari discussed her new children’s book with the Nashville Banner.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gregory Pardlo will appear with Valencia Robin at ETSU on October 22.