Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Welcome to the Machine

Characters come of age in the secret city of Oak Ridge in Janet Beard’s The Atomic City Girls

The Atomic City Girls by East Tennessee native Janet Beard is set within the top-secret “instant city” of Oak Ridge during World War II. Beard will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 13 and at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 14.

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The Spiritual Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Stephen W. Hines considers the religious faith of a very famous pioneer

Stephen W. Hines’s new book, A Prairie Girl’s Faith, discusses the spiritual legacy of beloved children’s author Laura Ingalls Wilder: “The sacredness of home and hearth are everywhere present” in the Little House books, he writes.

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To Call Forth By Noticing

For Nashville poet Lisa Dordal, paying attention is a kind of prayer

It’s difficult to make a poetics out of forgiveness, but that’s what Lisa Dordal accomplishes in her new collection, Mosaic of the Dark. Dordal will give three Nashville readings: at The Post on February 6, at Atmalogy on February 9, and at the First Unitarian Universalist Church on February 21.

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A Weirdly Wonderful World

Chattanooga author Natalie Lloyd chronicles the exploits of a most unusual family

Young readers with an appreciation for offbeat adventure stories will no doubt be delighted by Natalie Lloyd’s imaginative world and its lively, brave inhabitants in The Problim Children.

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The Play’s the Thing

A Nashville theologian considers the genius of James P. Carse

For James P. Carse, people are never not playing in one way or another. How we play—the expectations we bring and the invitations we are open to from moment to moment—is the whole human deal. Carse will give a free public address at Belmont University in Nashville on February 8 as part of Belmont’s Faith and Culture Symposium. The event is free and open to the public.

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Hot Time in the City

Hermione Hoby’s Neon in Daylight is set during an endless NYC heat wave

For the young protagonist of Hermione Hoby’s debut novel, Neon in Daylight, an alcoholic writer and his danger-seeking daughter lend an alluring glamor to a sweltering Manhattan summer. Hoby will discuss Neon in Daylight at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 1 at 6:30 p.m.

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