Chapter 16 - Part 27

Making Ends Meet with Every Single Stitch

Susan Gregg Gilmore’s third novel imagines the struggles of a young Tennessee seamstress

By Tina LoTufo | September 17, 2013

September 17, 2013 In her third novel, The Funeral Dress, Susan Gregg Gilmore does her finest work to date, perfectly capturing the rhythm and music of small-town Southern life in a quiet story about the ways women support one another when times are tough. Gilmore will discuss The Funeral Dress at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 24, 2013, at 6:30 p.m., and again at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on October 6 at 2 p.m.

The Mystery of Creativity

Children’s author Kevin Henkes talks with Chapter 16 about fruit cocktail and the creative process

By Tina LoTufo | September 16, 2013

September 16, 2013 A prolific children’s author and illustrator with more than thirty books to his credit, Kevin Henkes has proven incredibly adept at making the tricky transition between picture books and novels for young readers. His newest chapter book, The Year of Billy Miller, is a sweet and savvy story told from the point of view of a seven-year-old boy. Henkes will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Signs and Wonders

In her new novel for middle-grade readers, Kristin O’Donnell Tubb explores the magic of the zodiac

By Tina LoTufo | August 9, 2013

August 9, 2013 Franklin novelist Kristin O’Donnell Tubb takes readers on a madcap quest through the streets of New Orleans in her zodiac-themed thriller, The 13th Sign. On the day Jalen Jones turns thirteen, she pays a visit to the French Quarter emporium of voodoo priestess Madame Beausoleil and leaves the shop with a small leather book called The Keypers of the Zodiack. She hopes reading it will shed some light on her future. Instead, by opening the book, she unleashes ancient forces of chaos and finds herself in the fight of her life to regain the world she knows and protect the people she loves. Tubb will read from the novel at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Color Her Happy

Jessica Young’s debut picture book considers our emotional responses to color

By Tina LoTufo | August 7, 2013

August 7, 2013 Art teacher and Nashville resident Jessica Young’s debut picture book for children encourages young readers to look at familiar colors in a new way, urging them to define the world around them according to their own experience. Young will discuss My Blue is Happy at Parnassus Books on August 13, 2013, at 6:30 p.m., and at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. Both events are free and open to the public.

The Language of the Heart

Vince Vawter’s semi-autobiographical novel for children is about overcoming obstacles

By Tina LoTufo | July 22, 2013

July 22, 2013 “I was an eleven-year-old kid standing on a street corner in Memphis in short pants,” observes the narrator of Vince Vawter’s Paperboy. “I felt like I was so small that I would be blown away if the slightest puff of wind came up. But you didn’t have to worry about any kind of a breeze showing up on a late July afternoon in Memphis.” Paperboy is a rare treat: a gentle coming-of-age story that manages to be smart, funny, poignant, and original—the perfect marriage of style and substance—with a narrative voice that rings true. Vawter will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Navigating Troubled Waters

Susan Crandall imagines an odd couple on a dangerous road trip through the racially divided South

By Tina LoTufo | July 3, 2013

July 3, 2013 Set against a backdrop of explosive civil-rights unrest, Susan Crandall’s Whistling Past the Graveyard follows nine-year-old Starla, who is white, and Eula, a young black woman who has stolen an abandoned white infant, on a strange odyssey that will challenge everything they believe about themselves and the people they love, and change their lives forever, if they manage to survive. Susan Crandall will appear at the Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on July 12, 2013, at 6 p.m., and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 13, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. She will be joined at Parnassus by novelist Karen White.

Tender Headed (National Poetry Series)

By Olatunde Osinaike
Akashic Books
80 pages
17.95

“In Tender Headed, Olatunde Osinaike asks the question, what makes a man, and what makes a man like me? As he interrogates the inner and outer workings of masculinity in all its sharp and tender parts, and the way a Black man meets the world, his poems strut and duck and weave across their pages. These poems unpack the ingredients of being and make a meal of language.”

~ Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses