Novelist, short-story writer, and translator Adria Bernardi has now published a collection of personal essays, too
November 7, 2013 Dead Meander, a collection of personal essays by Nashville author and translator Adria Bernardi, captures traumatic experiences frozen in time. Bernardi acts as the fact-checker of her own life and emotions, as researcher and reporter charged with accounting for each experiment’s contributing factors, however minor their effect.
Russell Banks displays his trademark compassion for the tragic, woe-begotten, and maligned
November 5, 2013 Best known for starkly realistic novels depicting the hardscrabble lives of poor Americans, Russell Banks is also a prolific author of short stories that encompass similar themes of loss, regret, and peril among the misbegotten. His new collection, A Permanent Member of the Family, raises lingering questions about the nature of human connection in our fractured, fragmented time. Banks will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 14, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. as part of the “Wine with the Author” series.
Robert K. Massie, winner of the 2013 Nashville Public Library Literary Award, talks about the inspiration for his blockbuster biography of Catherine the Great
November 4, 2013 Two years after the publication of Catherine the Great, Robert K. Massie still finds his subject’s political example instructive, and he often notes parallels between Catherine’s public reputation and the treatment of today’s female leaders. Prior to his Nashville visit to accept the 2013 Nashville Public Library Literary Award, Massie spoke with Chapter 16 about his career and inspiration. He will give a lecture on November 9, 2013, at 10 a.m. at the University School of Nashville. Massie will also appear—with novelist Suzanne Kingsbury—at the Nashville Public Library on November 10 at 2 p.m. as part of the Nashville Writers Circle series. Both events are free and open to the public.
In a new anthology, John Branscum and Wayne Thomas have collected the literary treasures of Appalachia
October 31, 2013 For Red Holler: Contemporary Appalachian Literature, John Branscum and Wayne Thomas have compiled a group of stories, essays, poems, and graphic narratives from the work of twenty-three Appalachian authors. As the book’s subtitle suggests, the selections are truly contemporary, and many stretch the boundaries of traditional literary forms. They also stretch the old Appalachian stereotypes of primitive violence, poverty, and ignorance.
Ann Patchett talks about her new essay collection—and the beginnings of her next novel
October 30, 2013 Ann Patchett energetically resists all efforts to identify autobiographical elements in her fiction, but she has never been averse to personal writing in general: in fact, as she explains in her new book, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, she got her start as a writer by publishing essays and features for national magazines. Prior to her reading on November 4, 2013, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville , Patchett spoke with Chapter 16 about how opening a bookstore gave her the courage to publish this book. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.
October 30, 2013 Ann Patchett’s 2011 novel, State of Wonder, tells the story of a Minnesota scientist who travels to the Amazon to get to the bottom of a colleague’s mysterious death and in the process finally comes to terms with a mentor she’s tried for years to forget.
