August 17, 2012 Jeff Hardin, a native of Savannah, Tennessee, is a professor of English at Columbia State Community College. A graduate of Austin Peay State University and the University of Alabama, where he earned an M.F.A. in creative writing, Hardin is the author of two chapbooks, Deep in the Shallows (GreenTower Press) and The Slow Hill Out (Pudding House), as well as one book-length collection, Fall Sanctuary, recipient of the Nicholas Roerich Prize. His poems have appeared in many journals, including The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and Zone 3, among others, and have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac, Poem of the Week, and Verse Daily. Hardin will read from his work at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville on August 23 at 7 p.m.
Read moreAcclaim Across the Pond
John Jeremiah Sullivan wins over yet another audience with the release of his book in the United Kingdom
August 16, 2012 For an essayist whose work has a relatively short shelf life in the pages of various magazines, John Jeremiah Sullivan remarkably continues to win the favor of new audiences.
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A New Birth of Freedom
Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer reexamines the Emancipation Proclamation
August 16, 2012 The Emancipation Proclamation is regarded by some as America’s second Declaration of Independence and is denigrated by others as hollow and cynical, a political ploy from a master manipulator. So which is it? Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer asks that question in his latest work, Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory. Harold Holzer will speak about emancipation at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.
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All of Our Days
Courtney Miller Santo’s debut novel explores the complexities of mother/daughter relationships
August 15, 2012In The Roots of the Olive Tree, Memphis novelist Courtney Miller Santo chronicles the complicated relationships between five generations of mothers and daughters in a California family with a special propensity for long lifespans. Divided into five sections, this debut novel focuses on each of the women in turn—beginning with the feisty Keller family matriarch, 112-year-old Anna—and explores the stories of their lives, the ways in which they both need and resent one another, the memories they carry, and the secrets they hide—even from themselves. Santo will discuss The Roots of the Olive Tree at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on August 21 at 6 p.m. , at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 22 at 6:30 p.m., and at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.
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Living in Dangerous Times
In Julianna Baggott’s post-apocalyptic novel, Pure, children struggle to save a world destroyed by adults
August 14, 2012 Julianna Baggott’s Pure is a futuristic blend of fairy tale and science fiction reminiscent of George Orwell’s classic 1984. The first in a planned trilogy, this beautiful, startlingly inventive, dystopian novel has been optioned by Fox 2000 and the lead producer of the Twilight movies, and within a few chapters it’s easy to see why. The cinematic setting vividly described in the book’s opening is a post-apocalyptic world charred by detonations. Survivors are divided into two camps: the so-called “Pures,” who have been cherry-picked to live safely within the Dome, a bubble immune to future attacks and disasters, and those left to fend for themselves on the outside. Baggott will discuss Pure at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.
Read moreTelling Stories in Cowan
Rare book collectors gather for the third annual Tennessee Antiquarian Book Fair
August 13, 2012 On a sunny July day in the tiny town of Cowan, Tennessee (population: 1,700), forty-nine booksellers from twelve states and Canada recently gathered to buy, sell, and trade at the third annual Tennessee Antiquarian Book Fair, sponsored by the Tennessee Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association. Association president Tom McGee, a Cowan resident and local bookstore owner, proudly described the event as “the only major antiquarian book fair in America that takes place in a small town.”
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