Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Ralph Bowden

The Heart of Hoodoo

Tony Kail examines traditional beliefs and practices still alive in Memphis

A Secret History of Memphis Hoodoo: Rootworkers, Conjurors & Spirituals, is Tony Kail’s comprehensive examination of the traditional folk practices of hoodoo, specifically in Memphis and more generally in West Tennessee and the South. On February 25, Kail will launch the book at A. Schwab on Beale Street. Several additional Memphis events will follow.

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Volunteer Grit

“Forward My Brave Boys!” is the surprisingly readable diary of a Confederate regiment

forward_my_brave_boys-300The 11th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, C.S.A., lives again in M. Todd Cathey and Gary W. Waddey’s massive “Forward My Brave Boys!” Born from Southern outrage, the volunteer regiment encountered both tedium and hardship during the Civil War.

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Marine Corps Hero

Historian James Carl Nelson follows a young Tennessee soldier on the front lines of World War I

i-will-hold-cover-jpgIn I Will Hold, James Carl Nelson tells the story of Clifton Cates, a University of Tennessee law-school graduate who joined the Marines just as the U.S. entered the Great War. The young soldier’s amazing luck and bravery during the carnage made him a him a hero.

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Black Op

Graphic violence pervades every page of Joshua Hood’s new Search and Destroy thriller

June 23, 2016 Independent, often misunderstood, and fiercely loyal Mason Kane returns in Warning Order, Joshua Hood’s second military-spy thriller. Hood will launch the novel at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on June 30, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

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Magic, Poverty, and Strength in the Mountains

With Prayers the Devil Answers Sharyn McCrumb offers another compelling Appalachian novel

May 10, 2016 In Prayers the Devil Answers Sharyn McCrumb once again recreates the time, place, and people of her Appalachian homeland. McCrumb will discuss her new novel at free public events in Johnson City, Knoxville, and Nashville.

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Heroes from the Merchant Marine

Journalist William Geroux spotlights the impressive World War II sacrifice of men from small-town Virginia

April 26, 2016 Mathews County, Virginia, has a long tradition of supplying seafaring men to the Merchant Marine. In The Mathews Men, Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler’s U-Boats, William Geroux writes of the exceptional service and sacrifice during World War II of the seamen from Mathews County. He will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville May 3, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

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