A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

The True Costs of Amazon's Savings

By Margaret Renkl

September 22, 2011 Liz Garrigan’s Dear John letter to Amazon in today’s edition of Chapter 16 is an unvarnished call for book lovers to put their money where their mouths are and support their local bookstores instead of buying books online. Garrigan argues that Amazon’s refusal to collect the state and local sales taxes that other bricks-and-mortar stores collect–taxes that support local schools, police and fire departments, and other civic necessities–amounts to a “powerful incentive for customers to let their fingers do the clicking.”

Hall of Famers

By Margaret Renkl

September 21, 2011 Five writers have been tapped for the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame: journalist Jim Dykes, novelist Michael Knight, journalist Don Williams, poet Linda Parsons Marion, and blogger Katie Allison Granju.

The Image That Steals the Soul

By Margaret Renkl

December 9, 2011 In an essay for The Huffington Post, Nashville native Madison Smartt Bell recalls an incident in a French bistro that made him consider what it means to be a writer in an age when every reader, or potential reader, has a search engine in his pocket. When some Frenchmen Bell didn’t know Googled him as he stood before them, the novelist was a bit unnerved:

Ninth Inning

By Margaret Renkl

September 19, 2011 Having a poem read aloud to millions of public-radio listeners by the thick, buttery voice of Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac has to be a high point in any poet’s public life. For Memphis poet Matt Cook, it’s a high with which he’s becoming increasingly familiar: today Keillor read Cook’s poem, “Nonsense”–Cook’s ninth appearance on the program since 2002. Listen to Keillor read it here.

Memphis to London to Broadway

By Margaret Renkl

September 15, 2011 Katori Hall, a 29-year-old playwright from Memphis, has suddenly found herself not just Broadway-bound but also part of an historic moment for the Great White Way: Hall’s play, The Mountaintop, will be performed during the same season as new work by two other African-American women, Lydia R. Diamond and Suzan-Lori Parks.

Juggernaut

By Margaret Renkl

September 9, 2011 Michael Sims, a Crossville native, has already written four books of nonfiction and edited (as well as carefully annotated) five collections of short fiction (plus one collection of comic verse), but he shows no signs of slowing his output, much less resting on his laurels. Today Publisher’s Weekly announced another two-book deal for Sims with Walker & Company.

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