Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

"Aqua"

May 13, 2010 Linda Parsons Marion is the author of two poetry collections, Home Fires and Mother Land. For fourteen years she served as poetry editor of Now & Then magazine and has received literary fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission and Associated Writing Programs, and her poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Shenandoah, and Prairie Schooner, among other journals and anthologies. She is an editor at the University of Tennessee and lives in Knoxville with her husband, poet Jeff Daniel Marion.

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O, Henrietta!

Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios to produce HBO film based on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

May 12, 2010 Oprah Winfrey’s Harper Studios will join forces with Alan Ball, creator of the HBO series True Blood, to make a film version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Memphis author Rebecca Skloot, according to an AP report today. The film will air on HBO, but no production schedule or air date has been announced.

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Human Wrongs and Animal Rights

Carol Bradley tells the heartbreaking story of that doggie in the window

May 12, 2010 “All dogs matter.” This is the starting point for former Nashville Banner reporter Carol Bradley in her powerful new book about unscrupulous dog breeders, Saving Gracie. She calls puppy mills a “national disgrace” and exposes it as “one of America’s most shameful secrets.” Basing her story on a successful but highly abusive Pennsylvania breeder, Bradley describes in harrowing detail how dogs are abused for profit and how difficult it has been for law enforcement authorities to stop the practice. Bradley will read from her book on May 13 at 5 p.m. in the offices of McNeely Piggott & Fox in Nashville, and on May 15 at Carpe Librum Booksellers in Knoxville at 4 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.

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Systemic Poison

Scott Pratt’s third thriller puts the legal process on trial

May 11, 2010 Scott Pratt’s third novel, Injustice for All, continues the adventures of Joe Dillard, assistant district attorney in Washington County, Tennessee. Dillard has his hands more than full in this outing as he battles an imperious judge, a drug kingpin, a sleazy DA, and a collection of other colorful members of the criminal and criminal-justice communities.

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The Wisdom of the Hummingbird

Waiting, and hoping for the best

May 7, 2010 As rain invaded my basement on the second day of the deluge, I struggled to open a long-stuck garage door that would (maybe, I hoped) let some of the rising water escape. For the next three hours I pushed a big broom through the surf, trying to get the tide to flow out faster than it was flowing in, and rubbing my hands sore in the process. All of this labor was absolutely futile. The sky was still spewing water like a fire hose.

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Runoff

The water had a place to get to, and it was in a hurry

May 7, 2010 People emerged in ones and twos and threes, with dogs and without, all looking pale and both shell-shocked and excited. The river now covered the ball field. A dead woodchuck floated belly-up among the bobbing plastic bottles. Canada geese swam through the debris, unperturbed.

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