Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Democracy’s Double-Edged Sword

Kellie Carter Jackson explains how black abolitionists employed the political language of violence

In Force and Freedom, historian Kellie Carter Jackson places black abolitionists at the center of the coming of the Civil War. 

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People of the Pandemic

Remembering the first days of the coronavirus crisis

Nothing illuminates the beauty of the average day quite so brilliantly as the fear that the average day has vanished indefinitely — maybe for always.

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Layers

When love isn’t love

Getting to know a person is like digging through the core of the Earth. Sometimes you find interesting and complex layers; other times, you hit an empty cavity that’s waiting to devour you whole.

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A Multidimensional Narrative

Book Excerpt: Voyage of the Adventure

Voyage of the Adventure, a collection of photographs by John Guider documenting his 2016 journey retracing the historic route of the Donelson party, will be published in September 2020. John Guider is an Emmy Award–winning photographer and author based in Nashville.

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I Would Have Said It Was Mystical

In Karen Salyer McElmurray’s Wanting Radiance, a daughter searches for her own buried origins

Fortune telling — through tarot cards, palm readings, or other means of divination — was a way of life for Miracelle and her mother, whose bond forms the heart of Karen Salyer McElmurray’s novel, Wanting Radiance. After years on her own, Miracelle sets her sights on the past, including her mother’s unsolved murder.

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The Legacy of One of Our Most Important Books

Vanderbilt University Press confronts the racism in its history

This volume helped set the course of the Press. It helped cement our reputation for publishing important, vital scholarship. All the beautiful words in it were devoted to celebrating and eulogizing the legacy of the white supremacist South.

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