Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Wielding Power Softly

Amy Greenberg’s new biography calls Sarah Polk the ‘First Lady who was a lady first’

Amy S. Greenberg, professor of history and women’s studies at Penn State University, will talk about Lady First, her biography of Sarah Childress Polk, at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville on January 29.

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Learning How To Be

In Shining Man, Todd Dills’ picaresque hero goes on a raucous journey of self-discovery

Todd Dills’ novel Shining Man follows the adventures of a detached young man from Charlotte, North Carolina, who journeys to Chicago to find his missing father.

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A Taste of Tennessee’s History

Taproots of Tennessee is equal parts history, cookbook, and travel guide

Songwriter Lynne Drysdale Patterson visited 17 historical sites across the state to gather the material for Taproots of Tennessee, a book that reaches across genres to deliver historical narrative, travel information, and recipes from each place.

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Grasshopper

First-prize winner in the Tennessee True Stories Essay Contest

James was the only person I’d talked to in the first week of moving to Nashville, outside of my husband and the local coffee shop guy. We would be spending many hours together, just the two of us in this little car. I wanted him to like me.

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Housed in a Temple of Difference

Leaf Seligman’s vivid character studies reveal the quiet desperation of carnival performers 

Through 13 linked stories, Leaf Seligman’s From the Midway creates a world apart: the tragic, broken-down world of a second-rate traveling carnival in early 20th-century America. It is a beautifully written and deeply affecting meditation on the barriers that separate us from one another and from our own deepest longings.

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A City of Women

A hotel in Paris connects the stories of three formidable women

In All the Ways We Said Goodbye, Team W — the partnership nickname of bestselling authors Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White — embarks on a third novel. This time, the connecting strand running through the engrossing stories of three formidable women living in three different time periods is a place: the Ritz hotel in Paris. The authors will appear at Novel in Memphis on January 23.

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