Novelist Jonathan Miles talks with Chapter 16 about comedy and philosophy in fiction
January 20, 2015 Jonathan Miles has a gift for transforming life’s base materials into literary gold. His novels, Dear American Airlines (2008) and Want Not (2013), address dark, potentially dispiriting themes with a deft, comedic touch. Miles will give a free public reading at the University of Tennessee’s John C. Hodges Library in Knoxville on January 26, 2015, at 7 p.m.
January 16, 2015 Bridgette Bates’s poems have appeared in Boston Review, Fence, jubilat, VERSE, and elsewhere. The recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a “Discovery” Prize, she is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Originally from Nashville, she lives in Los Angeles where she writes for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and is a features contributor to Kirkus Reviews. She will read from her new collection, What Is Not Missing is Light, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 22, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
Sharon M. Draper crafts a tale of community, family, and courage in the Jim Crow South
January 15, 2015 Eleven-year-old Stella Mills has always felt safe in the embrace of her family and community. But Stella feels helpless during a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan—until she finds a way to help. Sharon Draper, five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, will discuss her new middle-grade novel, Stella by Starlight, at the Nashville Public Library on January 22, 2015, at 6 p.m. and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on January 23, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
In The Secret of Magic, Deborah Johnson tackles the difficult truths of segregation-era Mississippi
January 13, 2015 Regina Mary Robichard, the determined young NAACP lawyer at the center of Deborah Johnson’s The Secret of Magic, finds herself deeply drawn to the case of a brutal murder in segregation-era Mississippi. Investigating, she enters a world of both racial conflict and magical surprise. Deborah Johnson will discuss The Secret of Magic at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 17, 2015, at 2 p.m.
Revered novelist Tim O’Brien talks with Chapter 16 about his forthcoming Nashville appearance with the other Tim O’Brien, a bluegrass legend
January 12, 2015 For more than thirty years, Tim O’Brien has been regarded as one of the definitive voices of the Vietnam War. A literary trailblazer, he melds fact and fiction in texts that are both starkly realistic and surreal. O’Brien will be in Nashville on January 17, 2015, to share the stage with Tim O’Brien, the equally legendary Nashville musician, at a special benefit in support of The Porch Writers’ Collective.
In The Next Elvis, Barbara Barnes Sims offers a down-to-earth view of the legendary Sun Records
January 9, 2015 Barbara Barnes Sims spent three years witnessing rock’n’roll history from the ground level, working at the legendary Sun Records label in the late 1950s. Her fascinating memories of that time are collected in The Next Elvis: Searching for Stardom at Sun Records.
