Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

To Dream the Improbable Dream

With Frankenstein Dreams, editor Michael Sims presents twenty vintage works of science fiction

In his new anthology, Frankenstein Dreams: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Science Fiction, Michael Sims explores early science fiction, a genre born during the rapid scientific and technological advances of the nineteenth century. Sims will discuss the book at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.

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Some of Them Burn

Planned community and contested motherhood collide in Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere

Set against the backdrop of a planned community, Celeste Ng’s second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, explores motherhood, teenage angst, cultural representation, and the life of the artist. Along with Shanthi Sekaran, author of Lucky Boy, Ng will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 28 at 6:30 p.m.

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Two Nations in Thy Womb

The arrival of mixed-race twins stirs local violence in Eleanor Henderson’s The Twelve-Mile Straight

The surprising appearance of twin newborns—one dark-skinned, the other pale and freckled—creates upheaval in a Depression-era South Georgia community. Eleanor Henderson will discuss The Twelve-Mile Straight at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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The Stench of Slavery

Ben H. Winters creates an alternate history in which the Civil War never took place

In the alternative history Ben H. Winters creates in Underground Airlines, slavery has flourished in the Hard Four—Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and a unified Carolina—because it is essential to the economic prosperity of the plantations. Winters will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15. Festival events are free and open to the public.

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Thunder on the Right

Jared Yates Sexton rides the election storm surge in The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore

The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore, an account of Jared Yates Sexton’s year on the 2016 campaign trail, describes Donald Trump’s rise to power and Hillary Clinton’s unexpected crash. Sexton will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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Burn Me Anew

A man confronts a legacy of abusive therapy in Nick White’s How to Survive a Summer

At the center of Nick White’s striking debut novel, How to Survive a Summer, is the burden of an unconfronted trauma at a long-defunct “gay conversion therapy” camp. White will discuss How to Survive a Summer at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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