Editor’s Notes

We all know how much Dolly Parton loves books, but did you know she’s an especially big fan of Lee Smith’s work? Woman’s World recently shared a little of Dolly’s literary preferences and noted her long friendship with the storytelling legend. The Southern Festival of Books and Chapter 16 get a shout out in the piece, which links to the 2023 interview our own Tina Chambers did with…

Sheri Lea Sellmeyer’s Nashville’s New Americans takes an up close and personal look at the issue of immigration via profiles of individuals from around the world who have made Nashville home. Reviewer Caroline Siegrist writes that the book “serves as a powerful reminder of the immense diversity the city contains,” and she notes Sellmeyer’s observation that immigrants have been…

Spring is here and it’s bringing more literary gatherings along with the flowers and sunshine. The second annual Zone 3 Writers’ Festival and Book Fair will take place at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville on April 16-18. In Nashville, the MNPS Book Fest will be held at James Lawson High School on March 28, with authors including Sharon Cameron, Jeff Zentner, Tyler Merritt, and many…

Humanities Tennessee welcomes a new staff member this month. René Dillard, a former public schoolteacher with degrees from Vanderbilt and the University of Chicago, is HT’s director of development. You can find out a bit more about her here. (She’s a fan of reading, dogs, and fireflies — a stellar trio of interests, in our humble opinion.) Today at…

More than a century ago, Rebecca Rose Mooradian’s great-grandmother Dzovinar escaped the Armenian Genocide. Mooradian has turned that story of survival into her debut picture book, Rose by the Sea. Today at Chapter 16, Margaret Kingsbury interviews the author about what moved her to write the story and what she hopes children might learn from her great-grandmother’s experience. Noting that…

Novelist, short story writer, and poet Ron Rash is well known to Chapter 16 readers, and there are two upcoming opportunities for aspiring writers to benefit from his wisdom. He’ll be the keynote speaker at this year’s Spring Literary Festival at ETSU, where he’ll appear along with Nickole Brown, Rose McLarney, and Juan Martinez. This fall, Rash will serve as one of the faculty members for the 2026 Tremont…