A writer reflects on her long relationship with Chapter 16
It’s been more than 10 years since I took those tentative and unwitting steps toward a part-time career as a “professional writer,” a label I never would have dared apply to myself until Margaret Renkl gave me permission.
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A rare map points the way to a dreamlike — yet deadly — destination
When a young woman’s estranged father is found dead, her investigation into a seemingly insignificant vintage map in his possession leads her down a path fraught with riddles, conspiracies, secrets, and lies. Peng Shepherd’s The Cartographers is an otherworldly thriller that will appeal to fans of V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library.
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A family’s storytelling tradition hides and reveals a history of domestic abuse
The Crocodile Bride, the debut novel by Ashleigh Bell Pedersen, is a gripping family saga about the power of storytelling — especially its ability to warm and soften the edges of cold, harsh reality. Pedersen creates a world at once tragic and beautiful, violent and magical, desperately impoverished yet rich in meaning.
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Mary Laura Philpott confronts life’s toughest questions with humor and heart
Making sense of the land mines of life is the theme of Nashville author Mary Laura Philpott’s new memoir in essays, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives. Philpott will celebrate the launch of Bomb Shelter at an event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 10.
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Kathryn Williams spins the timeless story of the Grand Duchess Anastasia into a YA mystery
In The Storyteller, the new YA novel by Kathryn Williams, 17-year-old Jess pretends to be someone she’s not when she’s around her boyfriend and his friends. But when she uncovers new evidence regarding the mysterious fate of the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, Jess is forced to delve deeper into the meaning of identity — and the cost of deception.
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Caitlin Hamilton Summie’s first novel explores the heart of a proud Midwestern family
Geographies of the Heart, the first novel from Knoxville writer Caitlin Hamilton Summie, depicts a close-knit Midwestern family over 25 years as they weather the daily trials and losses of life with quiet dignity.
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