Chapter 16 - Part 544

Anguish and Anticipation

Bestselling novelist Amy Greene describes the torture of waiting for a book to be published

By Amy Greene | March 28, 2011

March 28, 2011 Waiting for my first novel to be released was a little bit like torture, and I could almost believe that getting a book deal had been a dream. In the three years between the day my agent sold the book and the day it was officially published, there were two rounds of edits, followed by copyediting, then proofreading, and, finally, months of behind-the-scenes production and marketing that had nothing to do with me. After years of blood, sweat, and tears, my novel was out of my hands. Bloodroot would have a life of its own, and all I could do was watch.

The Novelist and the Nun

In an essay for Granta, Ann Patchett considers her long friendship with Sister Nena

By Margaret Renkl | March 25, 2011

March 25, 2011 Ann Patchett spent twelve years as a student at St. Bernard Academy, a Catholic school in Nashville run by an order of nuns called the Sisters of Mercy. (The school now ends after 8th grade, but during Patchett’s youth, the St. Bernard campus housed an all-girls high school, as well). One of the nuns there is the subject of Patchett’s new essay in the British journal Granta. The piece is not available online, but Granta assistant editor Patrick Ryan describes it as “a moving essay …

"Jungle Appetites"

By Gaylord Brewer | March 23, 2011

March 23, 2011 Gaylord Brewer is a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, where he founded and edits the literary journal Poems & Plays. His most recent books are a collection of poetry, Give Over, Graymalkin (2011), and the comic novella, Octavius the 1st (2008), both from Red Hen Press. He has published more than 800 poems in journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Brewer has taught in the Czech Republic, England, Kenya, and Russia. In June 2011 he will be in residence at the Arteles Creative Center in Finland. He is a native of Louisville and earned a Ph.D. at Ohio State University. In 2009, he was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Relinquishing the Flimsy Protection of Shelter

Gaylord Brewer discusses his eighth collection of poems, Give Over, Graymalkin

By Charlotte Pence | March 23, 2011

March 23, 2011 Gaylord Brewer recently published his eighth collection of poems titled Give Over, Graymalkin. He has published over 800 poems in journals and anthologies such as Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Brewer is also a playwright, and his plays have been staged in New York, Chicago, Nashville, and many other cities. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Brewer is currently a professor at Middle Tennessee State University and the editor of the journal Poems & Plays. In 2009, he received the Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry from the Tennessee Arts Commission. He recently spoke with Chapter 16 about the challenge of writing in a foreign country, his advice for young poets, and the pleasure of writing rude poems.

Fiction for Driving

Madison Smartt Bell reads from his new novel in a podcast for BOMB Magazine

By Margaret Renkl | March 23, 2011

March 22, 2011 Last month, Chapter 16 published an interview with Madison Smartt Bell and an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, The Color of Night. Now Bell gives a reading from the book in BOMB Magazine‘s series, “Fiction for Driving Across America.” Download the podcast here.

A Dog's Best Friend

Robert J. Blake’s new picture book teaches kids how friendship really works

By Joe Nolan | March 22, 2011

March 22, 2011 Robert J. Blake’s latest picture book features the tale of two best friends who’ll do anything to stay together. The protagonists of Painter and Ugly are a pair of dogs whose love for one another is nearly matched by their love of competing in Alaskan dog-sled races. Blake, who is also the book’s illustrator, immerses readers in the story of a Junior Iditarod race, a grueling test in which a group of competing teenagers push their dog-sled teams on a nearly eighty-mile trek into the Alaskan wilderness, only to complete the return run the very next day, after a night of camping in the cold with their dog teams. He recently answered questions from Chapter 16 via email.

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher