Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

A Banner Year

Tennessee writers shine on best-of lists all over the media

December 16, 2010 After a year of covering a host of truly remarkable authors who kept Tennessee on the literary map all year long, we at Chapter 16 aren’t surprised to find several Tennesseans (current and former) perched at the top of all kinds of best-of lists for the year in literature. From Amy Greene and Michael Knight in the east state, to Lydia Peelle and Adam Ross in Nashville, to Richard Bausch and Rebecca Skloot in Memphis, Tennesseans have kept people talking, and reading, with a host of great books this year. To read our original coverage of each of these authors and titles, click on their images in the box above.

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Rocking the Cradle

How Melissa Duke Mooney channeled a passion for rock ‘n’ roll into a bold new children’s book

December 15, 2010 Melissa Duke Mooney loved music, and when she began shopping for an ABC book for her then 4-year-old daughter, Nola, but found nothing that inspired her, she hit on an idea: what if there were an alphabet book based on rock ‘n’ roll artists, with famous acts representing each of the twenty-six letters? Being the woman she was—a do-er, a crafter, an instigator of many fun projects—Mooney decided that, since the book didn’t exist, she’d have to create it herself. The work that resulted, The ABCs of Rock, is an essential addition to the hip kid’s library, as splashy and loud and irrepressible as the artists to whom it pays homage. Tragically, Mooney died before the book was finished. Her husband Neil saw the project through. Today he talks with Chapter 16 about the book and about the passionate, creative woman behind it.

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Greatest People

HuffPo salutes Matthew Parker and Vadis Turner for Nashville Counts!

December 15, 2010 Vadis Turner and Matthew Parker have found a national audience for their children’s book, Nashville Counts!: The Huffington Post has named the pair “the greatest people of the day” for their clever fundraising efforts on behalf of Middle Tennessee’s flood victims. A silent auction of original artwork from the book brought in $10,000, and stores are selling out of the book all over the region. “Nashville to me is a sense of home,” Parker told HuffPo.

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Christmas with the Nitwitts

Robert Dalby brings yuletide cheer to his latest Piggly Wiggly installment

December 14, 2010 After a day of fighting mall crowds in search of this year’s must-have gizmo, there may be no better holiday treat than settling down with a cup of coffee and a Santa cookie and spending a few hours in Second Creek, Mississippi, with Robert Dalby’s A Piggly Wiggly Christmas. Dalby will read from and sign copies of the book this week at public libraries in Crossville, Murfreesboro, Collierville, and Clarksville. Check Chapter 16’s events section for details.

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Bird Fever

Stephen Lyn Bales explores a classic quest for the ivory-billed woodpecker

December 13, 2010 “Since the early 1900s, one question and one question alone has swirled around the largest woodpecker to live in our part of the world,” Knoxville naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales writes in his prologue to Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 1935-1941. “Is it alive or dead? …. Ivory-bills have attained mythical status because they represent all that is wild and unobtainable and resilient in our natural world.”

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Time Savers

Jim McCann and Janet Lee save the day—and the night—with their big-buzz graphic novel

December 9, 2010 Hear that buzzing sound? No, it’s not Rudolph’s nose on the fritz. It’s what’s happening as an author and artist with Nashville connections give Santa a run for his sleigh with Return of the Dapper Men, one of the season’s hit holiday gifts. Jim McCann and Janet Lee will sign copies of their new graphic novel at Art & Invention Gallery in Nashville on December 9 at 5:30 p.m.

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