A grandmother’s legacy
“I’ve never voted,” she said. The grandmother I adored. The grandmother whose oak-like presence sheltered and grounded my turbulent childhood. During a visit decades ago, we must’ve been talking about an election, the TV news on. I remember feeling stunned, then embarrassed, and even a little ashamed at her complacency.
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Book Excerpt: Merciful Days
Jesse Graves is the author of four poetry collections, including Basin Ghosts and Specter Mountain, a collaboration with William Wright. His work received the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He teaches at East Tennessee State University, where he is poet-in-residence and professor of English.
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A 12-year-old girl finds her voice in Jamie Sumner’s Tune It Out
A girl, a guitar, and a move to Nashville. With these three clues, you might think you know what Tune It Out, Jamie Sumner’s second middle-grade novel, is all about. But if you assumed 12-year-old Louise Montgomery is a rising star with a manager mom, you’d be wrong. Or at least you’d only be partially right
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Rita Sims Quillen’s sixth poetry collection focuses on the restorative power of being present
Some Notes You Hold by Rita Sims Quillen is an engaging collection about surviving life’s hardships. While these poems do not shy from the ravages of loss, they also acknowledge all the ways joy is patiently waiting for us, be it through prayer, meditation, song, or communing with nature. Quillen will appear at a virtual event hosted by Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on November 18.
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Allison Moorer turns family tragedy into bittersweet art
In Blood, country music artist Allison Moorer describes the circumstances that led to her parents’ murder-suicide in 1986 and the crime’s devastating effect on her and her only sibling, fellow singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne. Moorer will appear with Silas House in a virtual event hosted by The Porch in Nashville on October 28.
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Clarksville artist Billy Renkl illustrates his first children’s book
Clarksville artist Billy Renkl discusses figurative language, his love of paper, and creating the illustrations for his first children’s book, Diana Farid’s When You Breathe.
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