Our visit to Alcatraz opened my eyes and heart
My daughter didn’t go to Alcatraz willingly. She grumbled the whole way, punctuating the morning with sarcasm: “Yay, it’s prison day!” Perhaps she was right — what purpose did it serve to see this horrific chapter of history?
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In Michael Farris Smith’s Salvage This World, a young mother seeks shelter with her estranged father
In Michael Farris Smith’s Salvage This World, a young mother, fleeing unknown pursuers, seeks asylum with her estranged father while a hurricane threatens to decimate the Gulf Coast. Smith will discuss the book at Novel in Memphis on May 1 and Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 2.
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Songwriter Lucinda Williams offers a transparent view of a life spent writing and healing
In her new memoir Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, Lucinda Williams tells the backstory of her songs and her life.
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Katy Simpson Smith’s The Weeds links the stories of two women botanists
Katy Simpson Smith’s The Weeds links the stories of two unnamed women, working in different centuries, who both find themselves apprenticed to male botanists cataloguing every species of plant growing among the stones of the Roman Colosseum.
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The past, present, and future collide in Lee Smith’s Silver Alert
Lee Smith’s ability to spin tragedy into comedy is challenged as never before in her new novel, Silver Alert, as a motley cast of characters navigates a world filled with pain and loss, while at least one stubbornly clings to her hope for a better future.
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The pleasures of patience, redbuds, and good neighbors
Sometimes I wonder why anyone would want to live anywhere but the South and whether I’ve discovered some secret to life since moving here.
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