Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

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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Coal Miners’ Hero

Holly Gleason bring together an all-star cast of writers for Woman Walk the Line

Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives explores the work of the first females of country music. Holly Gleason, the book’s editor, will appear at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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Book of Truths

Leah Weiss offers a bittersweet portrayal of an Appalachian community circa 1970

At times Leah Weiss’s debut novel, If the Creek Don’t Rise, reads like an Appalachian Rashomon, with multiple voices describing similar events in the tiny community of Baines Creek, North Carolina. Weiss will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 21 at 6 p.m., at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 23 at 2 p.m., and at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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A Stranger in Her Own House

Daren Wang’s The Hidden Light of Northern Fires continues a fine tradition in historical fiction

Daren Wang’s debut novel makes it clear that the sin of slavery was never only a Southern thing. Wang will discuss The Hidden Light of Northern Fires at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on September 20 at 5:30 p.m., and at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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Who’s Responsible for Changing Racist Minds?

Ibram X. Kendi will discuss his National Book Award-winning history of racism at the Nashville Public Library

Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America is an achievement, astonishing for its ingenious structure, breadth of research, wealth of anecdote, and engaging conversational voice. Kendi will appear at the Nashville Public Library on September 15 at 6:15 p.m.

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