Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Emily Choate

Portal of the Years

Rodney Jones’s novel in verse, Village Prodigies, roves the lives of six childhood friends

Rodney Jones’s powerful novel in verse picks through the memories of six young men from a small Southern town. Jones will discuss Village Prodigies at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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Two Nations in Thy Womb

The arrival of mixed-race twins stirs local violence in Eleanor Henderson’s The Twelve-Mile Straight

The surprising appearance of twin newborns—one dark-skinned, the other pale and freckled—creates upheaval in a Depression-era South Georgia community. Eleanor Henderson will discuss The Twelve-Mile Straight at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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Burn Me Anew

A man confronts a legacy of abusive therapy in Nick White’s How to Survive a Summer

At the center of Nick White’s striking debut novel, How to Survive a Summer, is the burden of an unconfronted trauma at a long-defunct “gay conversion therapy” camp. White will discuss How to Survive a Summer at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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Quirks of Survival

The dilemmas of modern life illuminate Erica Wright’s collection, All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned

The poems in Erica Wright’s new collection, All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned, exist in a glittering space between the everyday and the ineffable. Wright will discuss the book at the Sundress Academy for the Arts in Knoxville on August 27 at 2 p.m.

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Keep Calm and Parent On

In Maile Meloy’s Do Not Become Alarmed, a family holiday veers into disaster

Cousins Liv and Nora have booked their families on a joint holiday cruise to Central America. But even before their children go missing, the characters seem primed for disaster. Maile Meloy will discuss Do Not Become Alarmed at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 13 at 6:30 p.m.

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The Purposes of a Ghost

An orphaned boy negotiates the legends of his past in Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage

When eleven-year-old Marcus—the narrator of Gail Godwin’s latest novel—arrives at his new home on an island off the South Carolina coast, the secrets crowding his young life show no signs of letting up. Godwin will discuss Grief Cottage at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 12 at 6:30 p.m.

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