Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Called to the Water

A global fleet of stories about the deep

Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue — a new anthology of speculative fiction co-edited by acclaimed Memphis writer Sheree Renée Thomas — recognizes and celebrates the boundless wealth of creative sustenance offered by our world’s bodies of water.

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The Crafts of Freedom

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Mountaintop speech was more than brilliant rhetorical art; it was also the culmination of a lifetime spent in intense and extensive reading

April 2, 2015 We rightly associate Martin Luther King Jr.’s oratorical eloquence with his vocation as a Baptist minister, following his father and grandfather before him. But King also emerged from the rhetorical tradition of the liberal arts, transforming the sources with which he engaged throughout his too-brief life.

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Feeding a Movement

Suzanne Cope profiles Black women who used food to fight for freedom

In Power Hungry, author Suzanne Cope profiles Aylene Quin, a restaurant owner in McComb, Mississippi, and Memphis resident Cleo Silvers, who ran free breakfast programs for the Black Panther Party. By feeding people, they advanced the Black struggle for freedom.

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Forgotten Flora

Georgann Eubanks celebrates endangered native plants in Saving the Wild South

In Saving the Wild South, Georgann Eubanks and photographer Donna Campbell visit seven Southern states to seek out rare native plants. Eubanks creates compelling narratives of the natural history of 10 endangered species, along with the personal histories of dedicated individuals fighting to save these plants from extinction.

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Much-Needed Reckonings

An accidental food writer looks for lessons from the canon

Maybe part of a food writer’s job is to contribute to much-needed reckonings, whether the topic is race, food justice, climate change, workplace inequity … or genocide and disappearing cultural memory. In that sense, maybe nothing is food writing. Maybe everything is.

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Where’s Bitsy?

Campbell Hale investigates the case of the missing socialite

In Gone Missin’, the second installment in Peggy O’Neal Peden’s Nashville mystery series, travel agent Campbell Hale is not surprised when her friend Bitsy Carter decides to escape a dreary winter in Nashville for sunny Mexico. Trouble is, no one has seen Bitsy since the day she checked in at the resort. Peden will appear at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 24.

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