Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Lyda Phillips

Common Yellowthroat

During the spring migration of 1965, a teenager’s unhappy parents finally find common ground

April 4, 2016 For most of my life, I had paid almost no attention to my parents’ private lives. They were just there, usually a deterrent to whatever it was I wanted to do. But our three lives intersected the spring I was sixteen, the spring when they started watching birds and I, learner’s permit in hand, started to drive.

Read more

Guided by a Star

Novelist Robert Morgan follows two runaway slaves who are Chasing the North Star to freedom

April 1, 2016 In Chasing the North Star Robert Morgan tells a riveting tale of courage and survival as two slaves escape from South Carolina and seek their freedom in the North. Morgan will appear at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville on April 7, 2016, at 7 p.m. and at Chattanooga State Community College at several events held April 12-15, 2016, in connection with the Writers@Work series.

Read more

A Game of Elements

V.E. Schwab twists time and space in A Gathering of Shadows

February 17, 2016 With A Gathering of Shadows, V.E. Schwab brings readers back to the fascinating world of alternate Londons in a story as compulsively readable as its predecessor, A Darker Shade of Magic. Schwab will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 23, 2016, and at the inaugural Southeastern Young Adult Book Festival, held in Murfreesboro March 11-12, 2016.

Read more

Down Low in the Bluff City

Memphis Noir, a new story collection, paints a dark, aching portrait of Memphis, a city steeped in music and magic

November 2, 2015 In fifteen tense stories, Memphis Noir plumbs the dark depths of Memphis lives, from the richest and most privileged to the poorest and most desperate. Editors Laureen P. Cantwell and Leonard Gill, along with collection’s authors, will appear on November 3, 2015, at 6 p.m. at Crosstown Arts in Memphis.

Read more

Clear Cut

In Honey from the Lion Matthew Neill Null paints a vivid portrait of a dying world

September 18, 2015 Set in early 1900s West Virginia, Matthew Neill Null’s debut novel, Honey from the Lion, is a gritty tale of an era when timber barons ripped a swath of destruction across the virgin forests to fuel an industrial revolution. Null will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015.

Read more

Under Fire

For memoirist Frances Mayes, childhood was a powder keg

October 7, 2014 In Under Magnolia, Frances Mayes recalls her childhood in South Georgia, trying to survive in the overwrought atmosphere created by her high-strung, alcoholic parents. It is a moving account of the coming-of-age of a young woman destined to be a poet, teacher, and bestselling memoirist. Mayes will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 10-12, 2014.

Read more
TAKE THE SHORT READER SURVEY! CHAPTER 16 SURVEYOR SURVEYING