Chapter 16 - Part 29

Dudes, Locked in a Dudely Power Struggle

Gallatin poet Elizabeth McClellan retells the story of Frankenstein’s second monster—and earns a Rhysling nomination in the process

By Margaret Renkl | June 3, 2011

June 3, 2011 “Anything So Utterly Destroyed” by Elizabeth McClellan, a Gallatin-based poet and University of Memphis law student, has been nominated for a 2011 Rhysling Award by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. The Rhysling is a prize given to the best science-fiction, fantasy, or horror poem published during the previous year.

Rock the Revolution

For poet Khaled Mattawa, a resurgence in music is a sure sign of the coming freedom in Libya

By Margaret Renkl | June 1, 2011

June 1, 2011 At thirteen, an age when many kids are developing the musical preferences they will carry with them for a lifetime, Khaled Mattawa emigrated to the U.S., eventually graduating from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga and going on to graduate studies in creative writing at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Now an acclaimed poet, Mattawa left his native Libya after Muammar Qaddafi seized power, but he carried Libya’s music with him.

For the Fallen

PBS airs Wyatt Prunty’s response to the The News Hour‘s photos of service personnel lost each week in Iraq and Afghanistan

By Margaret Renkl | June 1, 2011

May 31, 2011 Last night in commemoration of Memorial Day, PBS closed The News Hour with a feature on Sewanee poet Wyatt Prunty, whose poem “The Returning Dead” was inspired by the program’s nightly “honor roll” of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The program first aired in 2006.) Prunty is no stranger to combat—he served in Vietnam—though he claims no heroics: “I was a nearsighted gunnery officer, and I don’t think I hurt anyone,” he explains in an introduction to his reading of the poem. It begins this way:

A Gentleman Goes to Hollywood

A new sitcom based on the etiquette books by John Bridges will be CBS’s lead comedy for fall

By Margaret Renkl | May 27, 2011

May 27, 2011 Last February, Chapter 16 reported that David Hornsby, writer and executive producer of the FX series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, was producing a comedy pilot based on the bestselling etiquette guides by Nashville-based writer John Bridges. Now CBS has announced that How to Be a Gentleman will be its lead sitcom this fall.

BEA Swag

Two Tennessee writers and a Tennessee bookstore win prizes at BookExpo America

By Margaret Renkl | May 25, 2011

May 25, 2011 Many literary awards ceremonies are held in connection with BookExpo America, the annual trade show of the North American publishing industry, and this year Tennessee made a strong showing at both the Audies, which honors a variety of titles in audiobook format, and at the Children’s Book and Author Breakfast, hosted by the Women’s National Book Association, where this year’s Pannell Awards—one to a general bookstore and one to a children’s specialty store—are announced.

Connections

John Egerton reflects on the history in a name

By Margaret Renkl | May 24, 2011

May 24, 2011 As construction begins on a Nashville road that connects the Tennessee State University campus with Centennial Park, writer John Egerton considers the significance of the names of local roads: “I found myself thinking about how much history is yielded up in the words and symbols of a good map when I saw in the paper recently that construction of a connector street between 28th and 31st avenues will be given a ceremonial send-off today, just a couple of miles west of the Metro Courthouse,” he writes in an op-ed piece for the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal.

Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

By Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
Seal Press
304 pages
$30

“Within these pages, I found my abuela, my tías and my primas — laughing, crying, and nodding alongside me. This book is a gift of understanding, and loving one’s family, even when our families are complicated and painful. It’s a beautiful reminder of the power of storytelling and the profound connection of kinship.”

~ Paola Mendoza, author, organizer and filmmaker