January 6, 2016 In Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean, a new essay anthology edited by Adrian Blevins and Karen Salyer McElmurray, contemporary Appalachian writers explore the secretive elements of their cultural inheritance.
October 5, 2015 The narrator of Geraldine Brooks’s The Secret Chord faces a formidable task: an order from King David to write an unvarnished chronicle of the flawed man behind the crown. Geraldine Brooks will discuss The Secret Chord at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015.
September 8, 2015 At any given moment, the fate of the feisty young heroine of Lorraine Lopez’s new novel would seem to rise and fall at the mercy of whatever book she’s reading. Written with humor, The Darling provides a delightful glimpse into the ways a woman’s reading life can become inextricable from her desires and her choices. Lopez will discuss The Darling in Vanderbilt University’s Furman Hall Room 114 on September 10, 2015, at 7 p.m. and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015. Both events are free and open to the public.
September 3, 2015 In his new memoir, The Wind in the Reeds: a Storm, a Play, and the City that Would Not Be Broken, New Orleans native Wendell Pierce retraces his path through the worlds of art, family, and social change. Known for his nuanced performances on The Wire and Treme, Pierce brings an actor’s empathy to this complex but ultimately hopeful account of New Orleans after Katrina. Pierce will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015.
August 11, 2015 Perhaps the most striking feature of Appalachia Now: Short Stories of Contemporary Appalachia, a new anthology edited by Larry Smith and Knoxville writer Charles Dodd White, is the sheer variety of characters found in it. The people in these stories fight against preconceived types and offer a rich, bold picture of an Appalachia that defies categorization.
July 9, 2015 In Long Black Curl, the latest installment in Alex Bledsoe’s Tufa series, Appalachian blood feuds recur through the generations like repetitions of an Irish reel. When Bo-Kate Wisby, an exiled daughter of Cloud County, returns home, she initiates a brutal power struggle that will test her entire community. Alex Bledsoe will discuss Long Black Curl at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 18, 2015, at 2 p.m.
