January 26, 2012 Despite the science-fiction origin of its title, the nine stories in Thomas P. Balázs’s debut collection, Omicron Ceti III, offer journeys into dark and quite disparate corners of this very real world. Wide-ranging in subject, the stories are linked by their characters’ fumbling, consuming desire for connection, and by the comic qualities that Balázs deftly draws out of their lonely and sometimes painful circumstances. Balázs will read from Omicron Ceti III in Chattanooga on January 29, 3 p.m., at Winder Binder Books, and on February 20, 7 p.m., at the Jewish Community Federation.

October 27, 2011 In Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s charming collection of linked stories, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a young seventh-grade English teacher, Beatrice Hempel, offers lovingly detailed observations of a middle-school ecosystem—observations that are immediately resonant and often suffused with wry humor, both for readers who have taught and those who have done time in those locker-lined halls only as students. Bynum answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to her reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on November 3 at 7 p.m.

October 19, 2011 Set in modern Thailand, the seven stories in Rattawut Lapcharoensap’s debut collection, Sightseeing, offer glimpses of the country’s pressure points: the tension between tourists and natives, between citizens and government, and within families. While Lapcharoensap turns an eye to the seamier side of Bangkok and Thai outposts, his characters are often innocents, gentle spirits who are keenly aware of the pain of the world that surrounds them. Lapcharoensap will give a reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on October 20.

September 21, 2011 In 2010, when Jaimy Gordon won the National Book Award for her sixth novel, Lord of Misrule, small-press loyalists and below-the-radar-fiction lovers found good cause for celebration. The novel is now out from Vintage in paperback, along with a re-release of Gordon’s previous title, Bogeywoman—a very different but equally brilliant work in which Gordon’s talent for inventive narrative voice is on dazzling display. Gordon answered questions from Chapter 16 via email prior to her reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on September 22. The event is free and open to the public.