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Secrets in a Nun's Cell

In Sacred Hearts, Sarah Dunant captures the mystery—and the passion—in a Renaissance convent

By Anne Delana Reeves |

April 16, 2010 A page-turner about a Benedictine order of Renaissance nuns may seem like a far-fetched concept, but Sacred Hearts, Sarah Dunant's latest novel, achieves the remarkable. Ecstasy, jealousy, betrayal, revenge, adolescent rebellion, and romance swirl like trails of incense behind the impenetrable walls of the Italian convent, Santa Caterina. Dunant will discuss the book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on April 20 at 7 p.m.

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The Lost Saints

Grove/Atlantic Buys Tennessee Novel

By Serenity Gerbman |

April 16, 2010 A.E. Willis, an eighth-generation Southerner, has sold a novel based on her family’s history in Tennessee. The book was bought by Grove/Atlantic, the publisher of Cold Mountain. Stories of her father’s growing up in rural Pocahontas, Tennessee, during the 1940s and 1950s inspired Willis’s novel, to be titled The Lost Saints of Tennessee.

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God and Woman

In The Heretic’s Wife novelist Brenda Vantrease takes on Tudor England

By Lacey Galbraith |

April 15, 2010 is the author of two earlier novels: The Illuminator, set in England during the fourteenth century, and The Mercy Seller, set in fifteenth-century Prague. With The Heretic’s Wife, she brings her characters and readers into the relatively modern age of early sixteenth-century England. Henry VIII is king, and Vantrease’s main protagonist is the beautiful Kate Gough, a descendent of characters first introduced in The Illuminator. A former Nashville teacher and school librarian, Vantrease once again returns to the theme of censorship and faith, this time conveying the intensity and danger of the Tudor period. She appears at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on April 15 at 7 p.m.

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At Last!

In her ninetieth year, Eleanor Ross Taylor Wins the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize—and $100,000

By Margaret Renkl |

April 15, 2010 The Poetry Foundation has announced the 2010 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the winner of the award, which carries a stipend of $100,000, is Eleanor Ross Taylor. The widow of acclaimed novelist Peter Taylor, Eleanor Ross Taylor made no apologies in her youth for downplaying her own artistic dreams to support her husband’s stratospheric literary career. Nevertheless, with his encouragement, she wrote steadily during the years of their marriage, publishing her first book at age 40 and following it with a book, on average, every decade.

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A Spirit That Passes Through

Novelist Madison Smartt Bell talks with Chapter 16 about the art and artists of Haiti

By Maria Browning |

Madison Smartt Bell, author of three critically acclaimed novels about Haiti, as well as a biography of Haitian resistance hero Toussaint Louverture, is a longtime supporter of a group of artists there. In response to the earthquake last January, Bell has joined with Nashville’s LeQuire Gallery to display the work of these artists, with proceeds to benefit both the artists and Haitian-run humanitarian organizations. Bell answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to his talk at the gallery on April 15.

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Against Guides

In The Atlantic‘s new fiction issue, Richard Bausch takes down the how-to industry for aspiring writers

By Margaret Renkl |

April 14, 2010 Richard Bausch has never read a book of advice about writing fiction, and yet his novels and short-stories—not even to mention his writing awards—could fill a small library. In this month’s issue of The Atlantic, Bausch explains why he distrusts the vast, ever-growing, and frequently bestselling genre of how-to manuals for aspiring writers. Along the way, he makes a passionate and moving case for reading actual writers, the masters of their craft, instead:

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