Chapter 16 - Part 439

The Many Guises of Cowardice and Courage

Memphis author Cary Holladay has written a lyrical new collection of stories that spans generations

By Tina LoTufo | March 13, 2013

March 13, 2013 Cary Holladay’s lyrical new collection of linked stories, Horse People, follows various members of a prosperous family in Orange County, Virginia, from the Civil War through World War II and beyond. Holladay crafts small, intimate portraits of her characters as they confront timeless themes of birth and death, compassion and cruelty, memory and loss, and the many guises of both cowardice and courage. She will read from and sign copies of Horse People at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on March 22 at 5:30 p.m., and in Buttrick Hall, Room 101, on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville on March 28 at 7 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.

A Risk Worth Taking

Jesse Graves writes poems about the things he cares most about

By Denton Loving | March 12, 2013

March 12, 2013 Jesse Graves’s first poetry collection, Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine, has earned high acclaim, including the Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year Award in poetry and the Weatherford Award, presented annually by Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association. Such accolades are no surprise to those who have worked with Graves and followed his career. As novelist Ron Rash notes, “These poems have the music, wisdom, and singular voice of a talent fully realized, and make abundantly clear that Jesse Graves is one of America’s finest young poets.” Today Graves talks with Chapter 16 about writing, teaching, and his deep roots in Sharp’s Chapel, Tennessee.

How Now Shall We Live?

Phyllis Tickle examines the Christian Emergence movement in the twenty-first century

By Tina LoTufo | March 11, 2013

March 11, 2013 Memphis writer Phyllis Tickle believes that Christianity—and specifically Protestantism in North America—is undergoing a cataclysmic shift. Buffeted by science, technology, politics, economics, and culture, the “faith of our fathers” appears to be facing obstacles undreamed of by previous generations. But according to Tickle and many other scholars, this has all happened before—several times. In The Great Emergence, newly released in paperback, Tickle examines the incredibly swift and often overwhelming changes of our own era. In her followup, Emergence Christianity, she narrows her focus to describe in detail the surprising new ways people have found of creating a church community in the twenty-first century.

Ruta Sepetys’s second YA novel explores dark territory: the world of brothel prostitutes—and the secrets they share—in 1950s New Orleans

By Stephen Usery | March 8, 2013

March 8, 2013 Nashville author Ruta Sepetys talks with Chapter 16’s Stephen Usery about her latest novel, Out of the Easy. Sepetys is the author of the New York Times-bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, which won the 2012 Golden Kite Award and was a finalist for both the 2012 William C. Morris and Amelia Elizabeth Walden Awards. Out of the Easy follows seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine, the daughter of a prostitute. Josie longs to escape the underworld of New Orleans brothels in the 1950s.

Essential Toils

For Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest, age-old remedies hold the secret of healing broken lives

By Liz Garrigan | March 7, 2013

March 7, 2013 Becca Stevens, chaplain at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Chapel on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville, has spent the better part of her adult life trying to help women broken by rape, forced prostitution, homelessness, addiction, and other physical and emotional trauma. In her new memoir—equal parts journal, spiritual guide, and history lesson—Stevens details her own sexual abuse and healing and how her ministry has led to the founding of Thistle Farms, a cottage enterprise run by women in the process of healing themselves. As part of the Salon@615 series, Becca Stevens will discuss and sign Snake Oil: The Art of Healing and Truth-Telling on March 12 at 6:15 p.m. Doors open at 5:45, and the event is free.

The Box of Hope

Memphis native Anna Olswanger has written a tiny but powerful book of Holocaust literature for middle-grade readers

By Susannah Felts | March 6, 2013

March 6, 2013 Anna Olswanger’s new children’s book, Greenhorn, tells the story of Daniel, a young Polish Holocaust survivor who arrives at a Brooklyn yeshiva in 1946. He’s carrying nothing but a mysterious small tin box, the contents of which he refuses to reveal. For his silence, Daniel is the object of both cruelty and compassion from his American peers. A tiny book with an enormous heart, as heartbreaking as it is brief, Greenhorn is a poignant, powerful addition to the canon of Holocaust literature for young people.

Camilla and the Caterpillars

By Frances Figart, illustrated by Matt Brass
Smokies Life
68 pages
$14.95

A young girl’s encounter with an extraordinary caterpillar in the Great Smoky Mountains leads her and her family on a quest to plant a national park right in their own backyard.

This environmentally themed chapter book for ages 6 through 11 introduces young readers to important ecological concepts including habitat loss and the interdependence of native species and offers a compelling grassroots solution through native-plant gardening that invites anyone to take part in addressing the growing biodiversity crisis.

~the publisher