Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

A Colorful Cast of Characters

Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder talks with Chapter 16 about tonight’s world premiere of her new play, Everything That’s Beautiful

Everything That’s Beautiful by Tennessee playwright Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder gets its world premiere tonight at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco. Crisp dialogue and poignant characterization mark the script, which follows a family struggling to start over for the sake of their transgender child.

Read more

A Rebellious Life

Jeanne Theoharis tells the story of the real Rosa Parks

You learned the story of Rosa Parks, the quiet seamstress from Montgomery, but you missed the truth. In The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis depicts Parks as a militant rebel throughout her life. Theoharis will speak on March 23 at 6 p.m. at the River Room in the University Center at the University of Memphis.

Read more

Mon Dieu!

Holly Tucker’s City of Light, City of Poison is a nonfiction thriller of Parisian intrigue

Holly Tucker’s City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris, a gripping tale of murder and royal intrigue set in seventeenth-century Paris, reads like the best historical fiction as it presents well-documented—and nefarious—facts. Tucker will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 21 at 6:30 p.m.

Read more

Strays

Desperation Road is Michael Farris Smith’s redemptive tale of two broken lives

“To tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t know what the hell is going on,” says Russell Gaines, the reckless but noble protagonist of Michael Farris Smith’s Desperation Road. Smith is a Southern master in the tradition of Larry Brown and Daniel Woodrell, but with a soulful, generous voice that’s all his own. He will discuss Desperation Road at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 20 at 6:30 p.m.

Read more

A Vast Cacophony of Contradictions

Photographer Jack Spencer seeks the soul of a country

Nashville-based photographer Jack Spencer describes America as “a vast cacophony of contradictions,” but his stunning collection, This Land: An American Portrait, transcends the dissonance. Spencer will sign and discuss This Land at the David Lusk Gallery in Nashville on March 18 from 4 to 7 p.m.

Read more

An American Story

Inaugural poet Richard Blanco talks with Chapter 16 about his new memoir

Richard Blanco brings a poet’s keen eye for observation and a prose writer’s gift for plot to his new memoir, The Prince of los Cocuyos, which illustrates how cultural, sexual, and artistic sensibilities are “all developed—not independently of each other—but simultaneously.” Blanco will appear at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 15 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Read more
TAKE THE SHORT READER SURVEY! CHAPTER 16 SURVEYOR SURVEYING