Amy Greene’s Bloodroot is in the Top Ten
Marge Piercy talks with Chapter 16 about poetry, fiction, memoir, and writing as a political act
October 15, 2010 Marge Piercy’s productivity and accomplishments are nothing short of astounding. She has published seventeen novels in genres as diverse as science fiction and historical fiction, including The New York Times bestseller, Gone to Soldiers. As if that weren’t enough, she has also published seventeen volumes of poetry and a memoir. She answered questions from Chapter 16 in advance of her public appearances in Knoxville on October 17 and 18.
Read more
Patrick O’Daniel records the Bluff City’s greatest disaster
October 14, 2010 In Memphis and the Superflood of 1937: High Water Blues, librarian Patrick O’Daniel has created a compact volume detailing of one of the worst floods in American history. In early 1937, the Ohio and Mississippi valleys were deluged with rain and snow, creating a disaster so far beyond anyone’s experience that the rules of flood control and disaster response had to be rewritten in the aftermath. Thanks to cooperation among federal, state, and local officials and volunteers from every walk of life, one of Memphis’s worst moments became one of its finest hours. O’Daniel will discuss the story at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on October 16 at 1 p.m.
Read moreAnn Patchett loves her Nashville home
October 14, 2010 If you’re the kind of reader who longs to know whether your favorite novelist writes at a desk or on a laptop, Ann Patchett has a treat for you. In today’s New York Times she explains what she loves best about the house where she lives: “I think of Eudora Welty who, at age 16, moved into the house where she would live until she was 92. She wrote her short stories at the desk in her bedroom. I write my novels in the bedroom across the hall from where we sleep.
Read more
Two underemployed spelling geeks set out to rid the world of errata
October 13, 2010 In a culture dominated by texting, tweeting, and emailing—media that have accelerated the decline of spelling, grammar, and word use—it seems unlikely that a pair of twenty-somethings would be the orthographic heroes of our time, bounding across the country, Wite-Out in hand, to fix our collective mistakes. But that’s the story Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson tell in their entertaining memoir, The Great Typo Hunt. Deck and Herson will discuss the book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on October 15 at 7 p.m.
Read more
In a new book, Phil Bredesen weighs in on the health-care debate
October 12, 2010 Few American politicians are as well versed in the health-care debate as Tennessee Gov. Philip Bredesen. A former health-care executive, Bredesen came to office in 2002 promising to fix TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, which was driving the state deep into debt, and he has a lot to say about the landmark national health-care bill that passed this spring. In Fresh Medicine: How to Fix Reform and Build a Sustainable Health Care System, Bredesen provides a searing but non-partisan critique of the bill. Recently, Chapter 16 spoke with him about the book, which hits shelves today.
Read more
