A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, Celebrated by an Entire Homeland

By Margaret Renkl

March 30, 2012 Between Shades of Gray, the bestselling debut young-adult novel by Nashvillian Ruta Sepetys, has already won the Golden Kite Award (an honor by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Prix RTL-Lire (a French prize for the best novel for young people). It was also a finalist for the American Library Association’s William C. Morris Award. Now Shades of Gray has been shortlisted for a prestigious Carnegie Medal, and Sepetys has been honored with Lithuania’s Patriot Award.

Good for Women

By Margaret Renkl

March 26, 2012 Political commentators keep expressing astonishment that the question of the right role of women in society has emerged as a source of debate during an election season in the twenty-first century. But Nashville novelist Ann Patchett was clearly ready with a defense of the sexual revolution that took place more than fifty years ago and gave the women the single most powerful tool in achieving political and professional equality with men. In a new essay for The Wall Street Journal Patchett explains why politicians “can have my birth-control pills when you pry them out of my cold, dead hands”:

Getting a Good Look at the Summit

By Margaret Renkl

March 22, 2012 If critics have anything to say about it, Tony Earley’s work will last. In 1996, on the strength of one story collection—Here We Are in Paradise (Little, Brown, 1994)—and zero novels, Earley found himself on Granta’s list of “20 Best Young American Novelists.” In 1999, The New Yorker named him to its inaugural list of the best young writers in the country. Whenever he publishes a book, it invariably lands on the best-of-the-year lists, and nearly two decades after he published his first book, all four of his titles remain in print. Tony Earley will give a reading at Christian Brothers University in Memphis on March 22 at 7 p.m. in Spain Auditorium. He answered questions from Chapter 16 by email prior to the event.

Getting a Good Look at the Summit

Another Honor for Daniel Sharfstein

By Margaret Renkl

March 20, 2012 Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism have awarded Vanderbilt professor Daniel Sharfstein the 2012 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (Penguin Press, 2011), a “sensitive account of the fine line people of mixed race have tread in the United States since the nation’s beginning,” according to a press release by Columbia.

Catching Up With Patchett

By Margaret Renkl

March 16, 2012 Here at Chapter 16, we like to post news of Tennessee authors—and authors who once lived in Tennessee—as the news occurs, one news item at a time, but that strategy has proved impossible with Ann Patchett, whose annus mirabilis bestows new mirabiles faster than we can keep up. Here’s the latest news for the Patron Saint of Independent Bookstores:

Billy Collins, Honorary Tennessean?

By Margaret Renkl

March 15, 2012 Billy Collins came to Tennessee in November 2010 to accept the Nashville Public Library Literary Award and apparently became entranced with Tennessee: since then, he’s returned to the state two more times—for a reading at the University of the South in Sewanee, and a residency at Vanderbilt University in Nashville—and he’ll be appearing in Middle Tennessee again this week when he reads on March 16 on the campus of Austin Peay State University in Clarksville.

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