Dr. Enkeshi El-Amin talks with Chapter 16 about nurturing Black-affirming spaces
Dr. Enkeshi El-Amin is a researcher, cultural worker, and lecturer at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned a Ph.D. in sociology. As co-host of the Black in Appalachia podcast and the founder of The Bottom, a non-profit community space in Knoxville, she’s working to reclaim space for Black voices and communities.
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With gratitude for Edward Hirsch and his expansive body of work
With over 2.7 million lives lost worldwide in just one year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic — nearly 550,000 in the United States alone — there are few poets whose work is more suited to guide us through this overwhelming grief than Edward Hirsch, who has said, “We need poetry to help us transform the oceanic depths of feeling into art.” Hirsch will appear at a virtual event hosted by Vanderbilt University on April 8.
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In C Pam Zhang’s debut novel, orphaned siblings struggle to survive in the unforgiving American West
In C Pam Zhang’s debut novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold, Lucy and Sam, orphaned siblings of Chinese laborers, fend for themselves in the barren hills of the American West in the aftermath of the gold rush. Zhang will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books on April 12.
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Author Meg Medina revisits a beloved character
Fans of Meg Medina’s Merci Suárez Changes Gears, winner of the 2019 Newbery Medal, will be thrilled to catch up with the book’s protagonist again in the sequel, Merci Suárez Can’t Dance. Medina will appear at a virtual Salon@615 event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 7.
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Clay McLeod Chapman’s Whisper Down the Lane is a tale of genuine terror
In Whisper Down the Lane, Clay McLeod Chapman reimagines the McMartin preschool trials and the “satanic panic” era of the 1980s. Chapman will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Novel in Memphis on April 8.
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In his debut novel, Dennis McCarthy imagines an alternate fate for history’s most notorious gunslinger
“So here’s the gospel story. Gospel as I know it anyway. Memory’s a funny thing. It’ll fool you.” Thus begins Dennis McCarthy’s reimagining of the legend of Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, aka William Roberts, aka Billy the Kid. The Gospel According to Billy the Kid is at once an unromantic account of the violence and lawlessness of the late 19th-century West and a rollicking good yarn.
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