April 10, 2013 Today, author Jill McCorkle talks about the title story from her 2009 collection, Going Away Shoes, which precedes the publication of her new novel, Life After Life—her first in seventeen years.
Stephen Usery
Literary Co-Conspirators
April 3, 2013 Acclaimed author Jay McInerney is most noted for his many novels, including Bright Lights, Big City and The Last of the Savages, but he is also the wine columnist for The Wall Street Journal and has published three collections of essays from the column, including The Juice: Vinous Veritas, which will be released next week in paperback.
A Very Close Deal
Novelist Jay McInerney and editor Gary Fisketjon have been collaborating on books—and drinking Jack Daniel’s together—for the last thirty-nine years
April 3, 2013 Legendary Knopf editor Gary Fisketjon and acclaimed writer Jay McInerney have been friends since their college days, and Fisketjon has been McInerney’s editor since the publication Bright Lights, Big City. In fact, as McInerney tells Chapter 16 in this interview, he wrote the first page of the novel after coming home to Fisketjon’s apartment at five in the morning, after a long night on the town. McInerney and Fisketjon will appear on April 7 at the Nashville Public Library in a program of the Nashville Writer’s Circle hosted by John Seigenthaler and William M. Akers. A reception begins at 2 p.m. with the program following at 2:30. Both are free and open to the public.
Read moreMystery and magic meet in David Wesley Williams’s debut novel
March 15, 2013 This installment of Chapter 16’s podcast series features Memphis writer David Wesley Williams, author of the new novel, Long Gone Daddies. The story follows three generations of musicians fueled by passion, ambition, and family tradition. Hoping to find fame in legendary Memphis, the men embark on a long and unusual journey through Texas, Arkansas, and the Southern delta.
Read moreRuta Sepetys’s second YA novel explores dark territory: the world of brothel prostitutes—and the secrets they share—in 1950s New Orleans
March 8, 2013 Nashville author Ruta Sepetys talks with Chapter 16’s Stephen Usery about her latest novel, Out of the Easy. Sepetys is the author of the New York Times-bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, which won the 2012 Golden Kite Award and was a finalist for both the 2012 William C. Morris and Amelia Elizabeth Walden Awards. Out of the Easy follows seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine, the daughter of a prostitute. Josie longs to escape the underworld of New Orleans brothels in the 1950s.
Read moreRichard Russo’s new novella is a haunted—and haunting—tale of regret and loss
February 15, 2013 In his latest installment for the Chapter 16 podcast, Stephen Usery talks by phone with Richard Russo, the acclaimed author of Empire Falls, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. This winter Russo has released two new titles: Nate in Venice, a novella available only as a Byliner ebook, and Elsewhere, a memoir about his mother.
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