Editor's Note

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 marking Father’s Day at the site this week with a new essay by Nashville novelist Mary Liza Hartong. “My Astronaut Father” is her tender to tribute to a dad who may not be tethered to sentimental niceties but still understands what’s important.

Ed Tarkington reviews the new novel by Kevin Powers, Children of the Wild, which follows a trio of young Virginians during World War I. “Powers approaches love, friendship, war, class, poverty, disease, and industrialism with clear eyes,” Ed writes, “but also with a sense of stoic idealism about the value of persisting through and beyond the endless cycle of cruelty which humankind continues to inflict upon itself.”

In The Kennedys and the Windsors, author Caroline Hallemann looks at the connections and parallels between two of the world’s most famous families. Reviewer Faye Jones observes that although Hallemann provides a wealth of detail about her subjects, she “is never voyeuristic. Her approach is always measured, and she never forgets that she is writing about real people.”

News Roundup

• Henry L. Jones, James Cherry, and Sheree Renée Thomas are among the contributors to Darling Nikki, a multi-volume anthology of poetry, essays, and visual art celebrating Nikki Giovanni. 

• Joy Harjo revealed the cover of her forthcoming poetry collection, Cloud Runner, in People. 

• Leslie Baird wrote about surveillance for CrimeReads. 

• Susannah Felts was interviewed for Chicago Magazine.