Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

All It Took Was an Invitation

Book Excerpt: Beyond the Point

Beyond the Point, the debut novel by Nashville writer Claire Gibson, is set at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The story’s protagonists are three women—a nationally-ranked point guard, the granddaughter of an Army general, and a rebellious homecoming queen—who struggle to remain close even as life takes them in different directions. The book will be published by William Morrow on April 2, 2019.

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How Appalachian I Am

Book excerpt: Appalachian Reckoning

Appalachian Reckoning is a collection of regional responses to J.D. Vance’s controversial bestselling memoir, Appalachian Elegy. In this essay from the book, Kingsport native Robert Gipe, author of Trampoline and Weedeater, writes with humor and compassion about the town where he grew up, the industries that made people sick there, and the people he knew. Appalachian Reckoning will be published by West Virginia University Press on March 1, 2019.

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No Accident

Book excerpt: The Current

In the dead of winter, outside a small Minnesota town, state troopers pull two young women and their car from the icy Black Root River. One is found downriver, drowned, while the other is found at the scene—half frozen but alive. The Current, a new literary thriller by former Memphis novelist Tim Johnston, will be published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill on January 22, 2019.

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Josie and Delia

Book Excerpt: Rayne and Delilah’s Midnight Matinee

In Jeff Zentner’s forthcoming YA novel, Rayne and Delilah’s Midnight Matinee (coming February 26, 2019, from Crown Books for Young Readers), Josie and Delia are best friends and co-hosts on their own public access TV show. But the end of senior year is coming, and Josie is torn between pursuing her television dreams in a new city or stay making TV with her BFF.

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Glorious Patchwork

It’s the ragged patches that make us who we are

My parents weren’t car people, and they adopted a vehicle that only a bootlegger could love.

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Winter Solstice

December light is the sun with a migraine

Technically, astronomically, the solstice lasts three days. Time stands still, sort of, before moving in the sun’s favor. So, technically, astronomically, I have two more days in which to dry wood and make a real fire.

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