Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Beyond the Crossroads Myth

In Up Jumped the Devil, Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow upend popular fantasies about Robert Johnson

In an important and revealing new biography, Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson,  revered blues scholars Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow separate the truths from the myths in popular accounts of the musician’s life.

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Waging War Through an Ethic of Care

In To Live Here, You Have to Fight, Jessica Wilkerson examines the role of women activists in Appalachia

In To Live Here, You Have to Fight, Jessica Wilkerson sets out to show that women were consistently present, active, and influential in social-justice and labor movements in twentieth-century Appalachia, bringing with them the insistence that their roles as caregivers be counted as worthy aspects of citizenship.

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Into the Arena

Clay Risen explains how Teddy Roosevelt helped usher America onto the world stage

In The Crowded Hour, Nashville native Clay Risen offers more than just a rousing retelling of the well-known story of Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. He also shows how the famous regiment and their more famous leader helped remake not only America but the world. Risen will appear at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on June 8.

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There’s No Place Like Home

Filmmaker Michael Ford’s love for Mississippi takes a new form

Michael Ford will discuss North Mississippi Homeplace, a photo essay documenting his travels in Mississippi from 1972 to 1975 and from 2013 to 2018, at Novel in Memphis on June 3.

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Celebrating Your “You-ness”

Marianne Richmond celebrates individuality in Hooray for You!

For more than two decades, Franklin-based author-illustrator Marianne Richmond has been creating books that celebrate children and family. Richmond will visit Parnassus Books on June 1 to share her newest picture book, Hooray for You!, with children and their families.

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Beloved America

David Dark talks with Chapter 16 about choosing our own spiritual ancestors

The Possibility of America: How the Gospel Can Mend Our God-Blessed, God-Forsaken Land is David Dark’s second book on American politics, culture, and religion. Today the Nashville author talks with Chapter 16 about the unreflective confluence of religion, politics, and media in the Trump era.

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