A young dancer grapples with identity in The Archer
In Shruti Swamy’s novel The Archer, a young dancer named Vidya explores her identity as an artist and as a woman. She both conforms to and defies the traditional expectations of her gender and class, all while grappling with the desires of her body and mind and the raw ache of abandonment after the loss of her mother. Swamy will appear at a virtual session of the 2021 Southern Festival of Books.
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Margaret Renkl discusses her new essay collection, Graceland, at Last
Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South collects 60 of Margaret Renkl’s essays for The New York Times. Her fascinating explanations of the natural world are the standouts, but she also weighs in with authority on politics and culture. Renkl will discuss the book at a free ticketed event held in Harpeth Hall’s Frances Bond Davis Theater in Nashville on September 14, at a virtual event hosted by Novel in Memphis on September 16, and at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books.
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A tribute to Vereen Bell (1934-2021)
For more than 50 years, Vereen Bell served the Vanderbilt University community as a teacher, scholar, colleague, and mentor. His fellow Vanderbilt professor and longtime friend Mark Jarman shares a remembrance of Bell with Chapter 16.
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Alan Lightman explores the beauty of the night sky in his first children’s book
Author and physicist Alan Lightman’s first children’s book, Ada and the Galaxies, written with Olga Pastuchiv and illustrated by Susanna Chapman, captures a girl’s joy over visiting her grandfather and exploring the star-filled sky over his home on an island in Maine.
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Young women use magic to achieve vigilante justice
Erica Waters’ second novel, The River Has Teeth, tells the story of one girl’s search for her missing older sister and a witch’s quest to hide the monster she believes is responsible for the disappearance. Waters will appear at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books.
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Ron Rash’s In the Valley displays his masterful command of short fiction
From haunting, short-form meditations on loss to a thrilling, suspenseful novella that revives an indelible antihero, In the Valley offers a distillation of Ron Rash’s storytelling mastery at its best. Rash will discuss In the Valley at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books on October 9.
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