Memoirist Daisy Hernandez examines her life between worlds
February 22, 2016 In A Cup of Water Under My Bed, Daisy Hernandez explores the pain and contradictions of growing up in an immigrant family. Hernandez will give a free public reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on February 25, 2016, at 7 p.m.
Mary Karr celebrates the examined life in The Art of Memoir
February 1, 2016 Mary Karr, one of the contemporary masters of memoir, is a true believer in the transformative power of the form. In The Art of Memoir, she offers a short course in the joys and challenges of writing the story of your own life. She will appear in discussion with songwriter Rodney Crowell at the Green Door Gourmet in Nashville on February 6, 2016. The event is a benefit for The Porch Writers’ Collective.
A woman considers her troubled childhood in Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton
January 19, 2016 In My Name is Lucy Barton, Elizabeth Strout takes readers into the mind and heart of a woman who has survived a troubled childhood, revealing a spirit that is both beautiful and deeply wounded. Strout will appear at the Nashville Public Library on January 21, 2016.
Christmas memories can be complicated
December 18, 2015 The Brownings excelled at Christmas excess, and no one enjoyed it more than I did. Becoming an adult took most of the shine off the holiday for me. There is not much wonder in shopping and cooking and managing contentious relatives. But there was a time when Christmas wonder returned….
Lisa Alther and Françoise Gilot discuss art, sex, war, and other things in About Women: Conversations Between a Writer and a Painter
December 7, 2015 About Women: Conversations Between a Writer and a Painter by Lisa Alther and Françoise Gilot is a lively dialogue between longtime friends about family, war, sex, fashion, food, and any number of other subjects. The conversation meanders through the history of the twentieth century, exploring the way culture and circumstance shaped the lives and work of two brilliant, unconventional women.
In Sarah Einstein’s Mot: A Memoir, a woman in search of herself befriends a tormented wanderer
November 17, 2015 Sarah Einstein’s Mot: A Memoir tells the story of the unlikely friendship between a woman trying to find some purpose in her troubled life and a chronically homeless man who struggles with an army of inner demons.
