Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Lee Conell

The Artist’s Will

In Julia Glass’s A House Among the Trees, an author leaves a will that creates havoc

The death of beloved children’s book author Mortimer Lear forces three adults who knew him to reconsider and reexamine their own lives. Julia Glass will discuss A House Among the Trees at Parnassus Books on July 26 at 6:30 p.m.

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Fragments Swarming Together and Apart

Jenny Offill discusses the unexpected success of Dept. of Speculation

“The threat to the narrator may be existential in nature but it’s still a threat,” Jenny Offill says of her novel Dept. of Speculation. “Her life is falling down around her.” Offill will read at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on April 6 at 7 p.m.

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Echoes and Disaster

In White Tears, Hari Kunzru summons up the voices of early American blues and its ghosts

Hari Kunzru’s White Tears is a literary thriller and a ghost story that deals directly with race, privilege, and American history. Kunzru will appear with musical guest Patrick Sweany at The Basement in Nashville on March 30 at 7 p.m., as part of the Books, Bars and Guitars series sponsored by Parnassus Books and The Porch Writers’ Collective.

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Begin Again

Erik Anderson’s hybrid essays illuminate the cyclic movements in our environments and our minds

In Erik Anderson’s new essay collection, Flutter Point, the author’s curiosity and willingness to lean into hybrid forms leads to an investigation of swerves, collapses, and new beginnings. Anderson will read from the book at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville on March 23 at 8 p.m.

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Beyond “Good Girls”

In a new anthology, South Asian American daughters construct their own identities

goodgirls_final_highres_smPushing past the pressure to be perfect daughters, the writers in Good Girls Marry Doctors provide a multifaceted look at women who are moving beyond and even reconstructing cultural and familial expectations. Editor Piyali Bhattacharya will discuss Good Girls Marry Doctors at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 25 at 6:30 p.m.

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