Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

“Bingo Cemetery, Green Mountains, Vermont”

Book Excerpt: My Infinity

Didi Jackson is the author of the poetry collections My Infinity (2024) and Moon Jar (2020). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Bomb, The New Yorker, and Oxford American. She lives in Nashville and teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University. She’ll appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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The World According to Memory

A young girl learns about love, desire, and betrayal in 1950s Mississippi

Minrose Gwin’s bewitching novel, Beautiful Dreamers, covers a lot of ground: lost innocence and found strength, the gifts life takes away and the gifts it gives in return, the lies that hold you back and the lies you run toward. But most of all, it’s about a mother and a daughter and the connection that never lets you go.

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The Bewilderment of Memory

Characters can’t escape the past in Jill McCorkle’s Old Crimes

Jill McCorkle’s new story collection resonates with sympathy for characters struggling to make peace with themselves and those they love. McCorkle will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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Making and Remaking

Poet William Woolfitt considers his West Virginia heritage in The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go

William Woolfitt’s new poetry collection, The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go, pays homage to generations of his people in mine-riddled West Virginia. Woolfitt will appear with Linda Parsons, Earl S. Braggs, Rita Quillen, Susan O’Dell Underwood, and others at “A Gathering of Madville Poets” at Addison’s Bookstore in Knoxville on September 7.

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Root, Root, Root for the Home Team

Keith Wood paints a portrait of a Memphis baseball team and the Black community that loved it

Keith Wood, a leading scholar of sports in Memphis, reconstructs the history of the Memphis Red Sox, a longstanding team in the Negro Leagues and a pillar of the city’s Black community.

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A Tale of Two Families

Rachel Khong’s Real Americans explores identity and ambition

Real Americans, Rachel Khong’s second novel, explores the lives of two families of vastly different socioeconomic status. This vivid, multigenerational tale delves into the heart of what it means to be American and the paths of aspiration, success, and disappointment that come to define a life. Khong will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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