Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Emily Choate

Students of Reinvention

In Holly LeCraw’s The Half Brother, a Southern teacher seeks reinvention in a New England boarding school

March 2, 2015 In Holly LeCraw’s The Half Brother, Atlanta-raised Charlie Garrett arrives at his teaching post in a wealthy New England boarding school seeking reinvention. When he falls into a powerful entanglement with his school’s chaplain, Charlie finds himself pulled closer into the strong orbit of his own past. Holly LeCraw will discuss The Half Brother at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 9, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

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Hear Me Out

In M.O. Walsh’s My Sunshine Away, a flawed man culls his memory, searching for atonement

February 6, 2015 In My Sunshine Away, the debut novel from M.O. Walsh, the suburbs of Baton Rouge boil with all the contradictions of a Louisiana summer. In a story that revolves around the unsolved rape of a teenage girl, this novel engages the dangerous terrain of memory, remorse, and forgiveness. M.O. Walsh will discuss My Sunshine Away at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 13, 2015 at 6:30 p.m. and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on February 18, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

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How They Live On

In The Secret of Magic, Deborah Johnson tackles the difficult truths of segregation-era Mississippi

January 13, 2015 Regina Mary Robichard, the determined young NAACP lawyer at the center of Deborah Johnson’s The Secret of Magic, finds herself deeply drawn to the case of a brutal murder in segregation-era Mississippi. Investigating, she enters a world of both racial conflict and magical surprise. Deborah Johnson will discuss The Secret of Magic at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 17, 2015, at 2 p.m.

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A Little Back-Up from the Dead

With A Sudden Light, Garth Stein delves into a ghost story with historical and ecological ripples

November 10, 2014 In Garth Stein’s new novel, A Sudden Light, fourteen-year-old Trevor and his father head west during a time of family crisis. In a fight over the fate of Riddell House, the crumbling mansion built from their family’s timber fortune, conflicting agendas of both the dead and the living come to light. Stein, the bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain, will discuss A Sudden Light at the Nashville Public Library on November 14, 2014, at 6:15 p.m.

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A Surveyor in the Back of Beyond

Ron Rash’s Something Rich and Strange reveals a master storyteller charting his terrain

October 28, 2014 Ron Rash has achieved wide recognition as a masterful craftsperson, and Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories will seal that reputation. This collection, drawn from more than twenty years of stories set in the Southern Appalachians, confirms Rash as that landscape’s foremost literary mapmaker and guide. Ron Rash will discuss Something Rich and Strange at The Skillery in Nashville on November 4, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.

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Vagabonds and Gurus

In Darcey Steinke’s novel Sister Golden Hair, the spiritual path encompasses everything from Bibles to Bowie

October 14, 2014 When Jesse’s father gets thrown out of the Methodist ministry in the early seventies, her family enters the vagabond spiritual path so prominent in that era, and Jesse negotiates her awkward ride into adolescence through encounters with her semi-transient neighbors. Darcey Steinke will discuss her new novel, Sister Golden Hair, at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on October 16, 2014, at 5:30 p.m.

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