Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Tina Chambers

What is Love Without Longing?

Sheba Karim’s meditation on desire and distance embraces and enlarges the YA genre

It’s the summer after high school, and Shabnam Qureshi has a simple plan: “Get through the summer. Get to Penn. Begin anew. Don’t look back.” But as Sheba Karim demonstrates in That Thing We Call a Heart, her second book for young adults, life is rarely so simple. Karim will appear on May 9 at 2 p.m. at Parnassus Books in Nashville.

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Fear, Fury, Hope, Love

For two teenagers, a same-sex love affair plays out against a backdrop of family grief

In How to Make a Wish, Nashville YA author Ashley Herring Blake deftly describes the highs and lows of a burgeoning love affair between two young women dealing with personal problems that would challenge adults of any age. Blake will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 2 at 6:30 p.m.

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The Greatest Miracle

Anne Lamott offers her signature musings on mercy

In her new book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy, Anne Lamott is on the same page as Shakespeare when it comes to mercy, believing that it “blesseth him that gives and him that takes” and, frankly, that we all need a lot more of it. Lamott will discuss her new book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy, at First Presbyterian Church in Knoxville on April 9 at 7 p.m.

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Giving Birth to Ourselves

Memphis’s Susan Cushman has curated a collection of essays by women, for women

In A Second Blooming: Becoming the Women We Are Meant to Be, Memphis writer Susan Cushman has compiled an anthology dedicated to female empowerment. Cushman and four Memphis contributors will read from and sign copies of the book at the Memphis Botanic Garden on March 26 at 3 p.m.

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Like Father, Like Daughter

Dana Chamblee Carpenter reminds readers that you can’t pick your family

It’s no picnic being the daughter of Satan, especially if you’re disinclined toward evil. Just ask Mouse, the 700-year-old protagonist of The Devil’s Bible, the new novel by Dana Chamblee Carpenter. Carpenter will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 9 at 6:30 p.m.

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Say My Name

C.J. Redwine puts a fresh twist on the timeless story of Rumpelstiltskin

The Wish Granter is the second book in C.J. Redwine’s New York Times-bestselling Ravenspire series. In this installment, the Nashville novelist reimagines Rumpelstiltskin as a ruthless, power-hungry fairy eager to give people their hearts’ desires—though always with a devastating catch. Redwine will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 16 at 6:30 p.m.

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