Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Following the Story Wherever It Goes

After three decades in children’s books, acclaimed author-illustrator David Wiesner is still eager to innovate

David Wiesner talks to Chapter 16 about his newest picture book, Robobaby, and returning to the Southern Festival of Books after nearly 30 years. Wiesner will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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The Singing Wire Between Joy and Grief

You Want More spans the career of one of the South’s most beloved storytellers

With You Want More: Selected Stories, Hub City Press delivers a career retrospective of the writer The New York Times called “among the great pillars of Southern literature.” George Singleton will discuss the book with Ashleigh Bryant Phillips at a virtual event hosted by Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 28 and will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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A Multitude of Elegies

Ayad Akhtar creates a powerful literary assemblage in Homeland Elegies

Ayad Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies is a dazzling, genre-busting book, a work of autofiction with the potential to shock us out of our complacency. Akhtar will discuss the book at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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Dim Lights, Dark Hallways

In Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, a neuroscientist tries to makes sense of her family’s unraveling

In Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, Gifty, a first-generation American whose family immigrated from Ghana, learns young that religion cannot explain her family’s misfortunes, so she turns to science for answers. Gyasi will discuss Transcendent Kingdom at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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Trapped in the Dusk

Erica Waters’ Ghost Wood Song is a suspenseful story about grief, bravery, and growing up

In Nashville writer Erica Waters’ debut novel, Ghost Wood Song, a riveting coming-of-age thriller, Shady Grove sets out on a quest to unearth her family’s most sinister secrets so that she can finally lay the past to rest and protect the ones still living. Waters will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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Hardship as Possibility

Contemporary Appalachian writers profile one another in Step into the Circle

Step into the Circle brings together Appalachian writers and photographers to profile some of the region’s beloved literary forces. Contributors Silas House, Lee Smith, Jason Kyle Howard, Wiley Cash, and Mallory Cash will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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