Woman of Light explores the persistence of stories
Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s debut novel, Woman of Light, is about stories — who gets to tell them and which ones survive. Fajardo-Anstine will appear in conversation with Destiny O. Birdsong at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 6.
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Take My Hand considers a terrible injustice fueled by prejudice and good intentions
Inspired by true events in 1970s Alabama, Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s third novel, Take My Hand, gives voice to a Black physician at the end of her career who can’t be at peace until she shares the story of two girls victimized by racism and the arrogance of good intentions. Perkins-Valdez will discuss Take My Hand at Novel in Memphis on May 7.
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Tara Stringfellow’s Memphis weaves a family’s complex stories
Tara M. Stringfellow’s debut novel Memphis opens with the North family tree, simply but beautifully designed. We can’t know where this family is going to take us, but we know there will be complexity and depth. A family tree contains multitudes. Stringfellow will celebrate the book’s release at Novel in Memphis on April 5.
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Lisa Russ Spaar’s Madrigalia curates her rich body of work
In Madrigalia, poet Lisa Russ Spaar demonstrates a deft hand and a careful eye as she combines selections from an oeuvre spanning more than 20 years. Spaar will read from her work at Vanderbilt University’s Buttrick Hall on February 17.
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Elizabeth Passarella on being a “muddled mashup of everything”
Raised in a conservative corner of Memphis, Elizabeth Passarella now makes her home in New York City, and Good Apple: Tales of a Southern Evangelical in New York tells her story: of moving to the city, getting married, becoming a Democrat, and raising a family, all while maintaining her unquenchable Christian faith.
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Paper Bullets tells the story of an extraordinary pair of resistance fighters
In Paper Bullets: Two Women Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis, Rhodes College historian Jeffrey H. Jackson has captured one of those stories from the edges of World War II, and the result is a fascinating examination of community and resistance, gender and sexuality, and what it means to recognize the humanity in every person.
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