Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Are You Visiting?

I’d never seen a mosque in the South.

On Eid-ul-Azha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, I knew no one in Nashville. I decided to wear my white shalwar kameez to commemorate the festival. What else could be done?

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A House that Binds

In Angela Flournoy’s first novel, members of a large Detroit clan clash and thrive in a city under stress

Set in Detroit, Angela Flournoy’s critically celebrated first novel follows the struggles—with relationships, addiction, finances, even a ghost—of thirteen siblings and their parents. Flournoy discussed The Turner House with Chapter 16 prior to her 2016 appearances at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville and the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville.

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“Suspect”

James E Cherry is the author of six books. His latest novel, Edge of the Wind, was published in 2016. His 2008 poetry collection, Honoring the Ancestors, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Still a Man and Other Stories, a Lillian Smith Book Award nominee and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Fiction, will be re-released by Willow Books in July 2020. Cherry has an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and resides in Jackson, Tennessee, with his wife, Tammy.

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Migrants Through Time

Mohsin Hamid talks with Chapter 16 about his acclaimed literary bestseller, Exit West

Mohsin Hamid’s work conveys a deep moral questioning and a valiant effort to make sense of a world turned upside down. In this 2018 interview, Hamid answers questions from Chapter 16 about his literary influences and his fourth novel, Exit West.

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Skin Deep

Nell Irvin Painter talks with Chapter 16 about The History of White People, the relationship between sex and beauty, and the necessity of the Black Lives Matter movement

Prior to her 2015 lecture at Rhodes College, historian Nell Irvin Painter talked with Chapter 16 about how the concept of race entered human consciousness, why notions of beauty are so inextricably linked to sex, and how contemporary readers should accommodate for historical wrong-headedness. 

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Bringing Justice to Young Readers

Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor talks with Chapter 16 about her two new books for children

In an interview conducted prior to her visit to the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, discussed her books for young readers, Turning Pages: My Life Story and The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor

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