Chapter 16 - Part 492

Another Prize for Patchett?

Ann Patchett’s novel State of Wonder is a finalist for the 2011 Wellcome Trust Book Prize

By Margaret Renkl | October 6, 2011

October 6, 2011 Ann Patchett’s novel, State of Wonder is one of six finalists for the 2011 Wellcome Trust Book Prize. The award, which will be announced at a ceremony in London on November 9, honors a literary work about health, illness, or medicine. In addition to State of Wonder, finalists this year include two works of nonfiction and three novels. The award carries a prize of £25,000 (about $40,000).

Great Goodness in a Mean World

Justin Torres talks with Chapter 16 about his critically acclaimed debut novel—and about what it feels like to go home again

By Fernanda Moore | October 5, 2011

October 5, 2011 Other writers can’t quit praising the debut novel by Justin Torres. “We should all be grateful for Justin Torres, a brilliant, ferocious new voice,” Michael Cunningham wrote for the book’s back cover, where he joined Dorothy Allison, Marilynne Robinson, Paul Harding, and Tayari Jones in a veritable orgy of blurbing for We the Animals. Torres will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

Deadly Information

For Taylor Stevens, the inspiration for her debut thriller came from her own unusual past

By Lyda Phillips | October 4, 2011

October 4, 2011 Taylor Stevens grew up on four different continents as part of a religious cult, escaping only in her twenties. Now a novelist living in Texas, she used her unusual experience to create the fierce heroine of The Informationist, who flouts West Africa’s vicious power brokers to rescue a Texas oil heiress. Stevens will discuss The Informationist at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

The Story Collector

Anthologist Andrea N. Richesin talks with Chapter 16 about getting writers to spill their guts

By Beth Waltemath | October 3, 2011

October 3, 2011 A crush can make even the most creative writer into a cliché. Luckily the contributors to Crush: 26 Real-Life Tales of First Love are too funny and self-aware to fall into that trap for long. In the experienced hands of editor and East Tennessee native Andrea N. Richesin, the tales of their summer flings, student stalkers, eternal bad boys, celebrity fairy tales, long-distance romances, and lost innocence explain not how we lose what we love passionately but how we find ourselves in the process.

Naked Girls Reading

Gallatin poet Elizabeth McClellan is a finalist for an unusual literary award

By Margaret Renkl | October 3, 2011

October 3, 2011 “Razor Hair Girls,” a poem by Gallatin native Elizabeth McClellan, is one of five finalists for the 2011 Naked Girls Reading Literary Honors. The winner will be announced in Chicago on November 18 after a live, on-stage reading of the finalists by the Naked Girls, a group of “beautiful ladies who love to read…naked,” according to their website.

Rescuing the iPatient

CNN talks with Abraham Verghese, novelist and physician, about why a doctor’s touch matters

By Margaret Renkl | September 30, 2011

September 30, 2011 Abraham Verghese is becoming well known for his belief in the importance of the kind of bedside examinations that doctors, in his view, too often skip. For Verghese–the author of the novel Cutting for Stone, which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for eighty-seven weeks–physicians who order high-tech diagnostic tests without ever conducting a physical exam are guilty of reducing human beings to “iPatients.”