Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Pursuing Ghosts

John Searles’s Help for the Haunted features a teen determined to solve the mystery of her parents’ murders

September 26, 2013 Sylvie, the teenaged narrator of John Searles’s searing third novel, Help for the Haunted, awakes to the sound of the gunshots that killed her parents. Left in the care of her older sister, she works to piece together what happened that night—endangering her own life along the way. Searles, author of the bestselling mysteries Boy Still Missing and Strange but True, will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

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Troubled Bones

In a Southern Gothic memoir, Brent Hendricks writes of his pilgrimage to the Tri-State Crematory

September 25, 2013 In his debut memoir, A Long Day at the End of the World: A Story of Desecration and Revelation in the Deep South, Brent Hendricks writes about the “largest mass desecration in modern American history” and of learning that his own father’s corpse lay among hundreds of bodies discarded outside at Georgia’s Tri-State Crematory. Hendricks will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

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A Book to Honor the Book Festival

The Southern Festival of Books celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary with an anthology by festival authors

September 24, 2013 This fall marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Southern Festival of Books on downtown Nashville’s Legislative Plaza. The free three-day festival annually attracts more than 20,000 attendees to meet their favorite authors and get their books autographed. In honor of this noteworthy anniversary, Humanities Tennessee is proud to announce the release of a special anthology.

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Against the Appalachian Minstrel Show

Scott McClanahan’s Crapalachia is not like any other mountain memoir you’ve read

September 24, 2013 Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place by Scott McClanahan is a surprisingly poignant work that manages to borrow from the Appalachian storytelling tradition as it confronts, even dismisses, its tropes and trappings. On the one hand, it’s an homage to the people McClanahan has known and loved; on the other, it’s a commentary on the fictive quality of all such biographical projects. McClanahan will discuss Crapalachia at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.

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Give a Mouse a Book, and He’ll Build You a Yurt

Daniel Kirk, creator of Library Mouse, considers the value of children’s literature

September 23, 2013 Daniel Kirk continues his popular picture-book series with Library Mouse: Home Sweet Home, a story in which Sam and Sarah look for a new place to live while their library home is undergoing renovations. Today Kirk talks with Chapter 16 prior to his Nashville appearance at the Southern Festival of Books October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

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The Original Pleasures

Kevin Young talks with Chapter 16 about poetry, food, music, and family

September 20, 2013 Whether he is talking about Modernism, blues singers, the slave ship Amistad, film noir, or one of many other subjects he has studied, Kevin Young—celebrated poet, essayist, and editor—writes poems and essays that simultaneously serve as portals to the past and future. Young will appear at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on September 26, 2013, at 7 p.m. in Wilson Hall, Room 126. The event is free and open to the public.

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