A Committed Conservative
She’s on the Bird
Good Sport
Obsessed with Understanding
It Ain’t Math
Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby
Menu
Search

Devastating

Silas House points out the similarities between the devastation in the Gulf and the effects of mountaintop-removal mining in Appalachia

By Margaret Renkl |

June 3, 2010 Constant images from the oil plume spreading devastation across the Gulf coast inspire Harrogate novelist Silas House to consider the similar costs to Appalachia of mountaintop-removal mining. And he has some advice for the president: “It’s time to start talking about sustainable jobs for miners who are losing theirs to machines on MTR sites. It’s time to try to salvage these devastated MTR sites into the only thing they’re really usable for now: wind farms.

Read more

Detour in Tennessee

The Academy of American Poets honors Kimiko Hahn’s poem about Sweetwater Caverns

By Margaret Renkl |

June 3, 2010 Today’s poem at poets.org, an online publication of the Academy of American Poets, is “The Sweetwater Caverns” by Kimiko Hahn. As with much of Hahn’s work, the poem is less about its declared subject—in this case, the famous caverns in Sweetwater, Tennessee—than about the way the subject raises questions about the convergence of death and desire.

Read more

The Boy's Alright

Former Senator Fred Thompson talks with Chapter 16 about his new memoir, Teaching the Pig to Dance

By Liz Garrigan |

June 8, 2010 Born in 1942 to a wise-cracking car salesman and a woman who appreciated politically incorrect humor, Fred Dalton Thompson grew up in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, where his Grandma Thompson padded around town showing off her excised goiter (which she carried around in a hankerchief), where he heard old men swap lies at the Blue Ribbon Café, and where he wandered into his share of boyhood scrapes. Thompson went on to spend eight years (1994-2003) in the U.S. Senate, conduct a failed presidential bid, and star in a long list of movies and television shows, but his new memoir, Teaching the Pig to Dance, sticks to his Lawrenceburg youth. Thompson spoke with Chapter 16 prior to his Nashville appearance at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on June 8 at 7 p.m.

Read more

Eccentric Faith

Award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director John Patrick Shanley talks with Chapter 16 about Doubt, faith, and theater

By Paul V. Griffith |

June 2, 2010 John Patrick Shanley’s 2005 play, Doubt: A Parable, won the Triple Crown for drama: a Tony Award, an Obie, and a Pulitzer Prize. The 2008 film version, which Shanley directed, stars Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman and was nominated for Critic’s Choice Award, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Shanley is a product of parochial schools, a fact that figures heavily in the design of Doubt, the story of a mistrustful, conservative nun who suspects a progressive parish priest of having an inappropriate relationship with an altar boy. Shanley will be in Nashville as part of Lipscomb University’s thirtieth annual Christian Scholars’ Conference. He speaks at 4 p.m. on June 3 in the Collins Alumni Auditorium.

Read more

Across the Age Barrier

Poets from Youth Speaks Nashville add their voices to Nashville’s literary census

By Maria Browning |

June 1, 2010 Youth Speaks Nashville gives teens the opportunity to learn and express themselves through spoken-word poetry. Some of its talented young poets will add their voices to Nashville Now: 2010 Spoken Word Census, a portrait of the city in poetry, prose, and song. The three-day series of events will take place at the Darkhorse Theater at 7:30 p.m. on June 3, 4, and 5.

Read more

Catcher in the National Spotlight

Siori Koerner’s letter to J.D. Salinger wins the Murfreesboro eighth-grader top honors in the Letters About Literature contest

By Susannah Felts |

May 31, 2010 It began as just another school essay, with a due date for a grade. The assignment: to choose a book that speaks to you—any book you wish—and write a letter to its author, explaining how the story sheds new light on your own life experiences. Siori Koerner’s letter to J.D. Salinger ultimately won its author, an eighth grader from Murfreesboro, top honors in this year’s Letters About Literature contest, a national program sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

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