Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Emily Choate

This New Kind of Survival

The outcasts in Charles Dodd White’s In The House of Wilderness search for refuge in the East Tennessee mountains

Charles Dodd White’s mesmerizing new novel, In The House of Wilderness, follows a small group of outcasts seeking refuge but finding danger. White will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on October 7 and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

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More Than One Life

Lee Smith discusses the challenges and pleasures of writing—and living—over the long haul

Fueled by empathy, precision, and wit, Lee Smith’s fiction opens up the interior worlds of characters whose depths we might least expect, given the everyday circumstances of their Southern lives. Smith spoke with Chapter 16 about her lifelong pursuit of stories that thrive on healthy doses of surprise, conflict, and mischief. 

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Island of Secrets

Beatriz Williams’s The Summer Wives explores the secrets of an insular community

Beatriz Williams’s The Summer Wives follows a young woman’s long entanglement with an insular island community and its coded world of secrets, gossip, and cross-cultural tensions. Williams will discuss The Summer Wives at Novel in Memphis on July 15.

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Don’t Let This Turn You Mean

In Silas House’s Southernmost, a pastor grapples with the evolution of his beliefs

In Silas House’s Southernmost, Asher Sharp’s evolving beliefs have estranged him from his congregation, but he pins his hopes on his young son. 

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History Twisting Up Bright and Green

Poets Jesse Graves and William Wright merge perspectives in Specter Mountain

Throughout Specter Mountain, Jesse Graves and William Wright’s collaborative poetry collection, the mountain landscape itself emerges as a powerful, haunting source of revelation. The result is a unique contribution to Appalachian literature.

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Permission Slip

Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion depicts a feminist tussle between generations

When a recent college graduate goes to work for Faith Frank, a feminist legend, she undergoes an initiation into her mentor’s world-and her own conscience. Meg Wolitzer will discuss The Female Persuasion at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 19.

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