Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Testing Positive for Hope

Gregory Boyle offers a lifeline to gang members in Los Angeles

In his latest nonfiction book, Barking to the Choir, Gregory Boyle highlights a central tenet of gang-member rehabilitation: the importance of kinship. Boyle will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 29.

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What Power Has Love

The poems in Marilyn Kallet’s new collection embrace the human struggle to reconcile the animal and the divine

How Our Bodies Learned, the new poetry collection from Knoxville poet Marilyn Kallet, is a sensual and spiritual guide to understanding what love is—and what it isn’t. Kallet will read from the book at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on January 29 and at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on February 15.

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Holy Ground

Writers across the state—and the nation—are grieving the loss of Rivendell Writers’ Colony

Rivendell Writers’ Colony, established in 2013, is closing its doors at the end of March. I’m still in shock at the news because Rivendell was flourishing, on course to be a nationally known residency program, but its benefactor has now made other plans for the property.

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A Labor of Love

Matt de la Peña and Loren Long discuss their new picture book, a tribute to love

Love, Matt de la Peña and Loren Long’s contemplative celebration of love and the way it moves through the world, will be the subject of their appearance at the Nashville Public Library on January 31.

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The Fallout of Disaster

Vanderbilt visiting writer in nonfiction Joy Castro talks with Chapter 16

Vanderbilt University visiting nonfiction writer Joy Castro talks with Chapter 16 about language, the #MeToo movement, and behaving badly in fiction. She will give a free public reading at Vanderbilt on January 25.

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The Crooked Road Less Taken

Jill Bialosky shows how poetry has added shape and meaning to her life

In her new memoir, Poetry Will Save Your Life, Jill Bialosky describes the way certain poems offered comfort through difficult times. Bialosky will give a free public reading at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on February 26.

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