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

If you think making Caldecott history — being one of only two artists to win the Caldecott Medal three times, in addition to winning three Caldecott Honors — would have…

The Singing Wire Between Joy and Grief

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

…a cast of what Sherwood Anderson and Flannery O’Connor called “grotesques”: misshapen people with wonderfully alliterative names like Mack Morris Murray, Libby Belcher, Paula Purgason, Mal Morris, and Hellbent Heidi…

A Multitude of Elegies

Ayad Akhtar creates a powerful literary assemblage in Homeland Elegies

…for the reality-show huckster turned presidential candidate. Something about Trump’s xenophobia awakens the id of the elder Akhtar, who rails against Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, disdains Black people for…

Dim Lights, Dark Hallways

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

…prowess — so that Transcendent Kingdom tells several stories simultaneously. Alongside Gifty’s bildungsroman is her family’s story of immigration, from the tightly woven social fabric of Ghana to the isolation…

Trapped in the Dusk

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

…reveal the real essence of the story: themes of healing and letting go and the connection between music, loss, and family. This gripping novel exemplifies how a mystery can be…

Hardship as Possibility

Contemporary Appalachian writers profile one another in Step into the Circle

…behind visual artworks created by inventive fellow poet Frank X. Walker. Memorable photographs appear throughout the book, contextualizing and deepening the depiction of each writer. Shawn Poynter captures a lush…

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