Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

For Opening Day

A Chapter 16 writer meditates on the mysterious power of baseball

The Knoxville team was a AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, so of course it was called the “Knox Sox.” Its games drew scarcely any fans, and many of those who came seemed lost, like troubled souls stumbling into an empty church—or, like me, simply sitting in the silence, absorbed by the mysteries of the game.

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A Comedy Show in Music City?

If pedal taverns could make it here, surely a live talk show was a lock

The idea was simple: we’d host a live comedy talk show in a theater every week and interview people from around town. Just like Letterman if Letterman was broadcast from a tiny theater in Nashville—or, really, just like Letterman if Letterman wasn’t actually broadcast.

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Echoes and Disaster

In White Tears, Hari Kunzru summons up the voices of early American blues and its ghosts

Hari Kunzru’s White Tears is a literary thriller and a ghost story that deals directly with race, privilege, and American history. Kunzru will appear with musical guest Patrick Sweany at The Basement in Nashville on March 30 at 7 p.m., as part of the Books, Bars and Guitars series sponsored by Parnassus Books and The Porch Writers’ Collective.

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Something to Lose

In Hannah Tinti’s The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, a father’s past haunts his daughter

In Hannah Tinti’s The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, a father with a long criminal history settles down with his daughter on the Massachusetts coast in a futile search for normalcy. Tinti will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 29 at 6:30 p.m.

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Just Let Them Play

Patricia C. McKissack discusses her ebullient new collection of African American childhood lore

Nashville native Patricia C. McKissack talks with Chapter 16 about Let’s Clap, Jump, Sing & Shout; Dance, Spin & Turn It Out!: Games, Songs, & Stories from an African American Childhood, her one-of-a-kind collection of African American children’s play-time lore.

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