Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

The Problem with Policing

In Occupied Territory, Simon Balto digs at the roots of the current turmoil over race and policing

Simon Balto’s Occupied Territory provides a history of race and policing in Chicago over the course of the 20th century. Balto will speak about the book on October 20 at a virtual event hosted on the Facebook page of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change, which awarded him its 2019 National Book Award.

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An Imperfect Family

Shannon Burke’s The Brother Years is a story of conflict and resilience

Knoxville author Shannon Burke, who beautifully rendered the American West in his 2015 novel Into the Savage Country, takes readers to the suburbs of Chicago in his newest work of fiction, the moving and deeply personal The Brother Years

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Yes, We Feel Like You Do

Guitar legend Peter Frampton tells his own story

Do You Feel Like I Do? is a catalog of musician Peter Frampton’s life and career, told by Frampton himself for the first time. Frampton’s renowned gift for songwriting translates to storytelling, and his vivid, conversational style lends this memoir the intimacy of a coffee shop chat. Frampton will discuss the book in a ticketed virtual event hosted by Parnassus books in Nashville on October 20.

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“My Therapist Tells Me I Keep Dating My Mother”

Book Excerpt: Negotiations

Destiny O. Birdsong is a Louisiana-born poet, fiction writer, and essayist. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and the MacDowell Colony and won the Academy of American Poets Prize. She earned her M.F.A. and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville. Birdsong will appear at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 14.

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Putting the Music First

Memphis Mayhem is an insider’s history of the city’s sound

No wonder so many writers have made Memphis their subject, this city that changed the world through sound. Now comes David A. Less with Memphis Mayhem, a slim volume touted by its publisher as the “definitive story of the birthplace of rock and roll.”

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Roaming Internal Landscapes

M. Randal O’Wain’s stories limn the South’s inequities and anguished history

In his story collection Hallelujah Station, Memphis native M. Randal O’Wain explores lives we’ve pushed to the margins. There’s suffering aplenty, but there are also dashes of art — poets, Dutch Masters, David Lynch — to leaven the pain.

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