Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

A Demand for Justice

Activist Justin Jones recounts the 2020 occupation of Nashville’s Legislative Plaza

A rising star in the fight for racial justice, Nashvillian Justin Jones chronicles his activism in a new memoir, The People’s Plaza: Sixty-Two Days of Nonviolent Resistance. Jones will appear at Fisk University on August 11 and at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 14-16.

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Welcome to Your New Eden

Bruce Holsinger discusses The Displacements, a novel of natural disaster

Bruce Holsinger’s new novel, The Displacements, imagines America’s first Category Six hurricane hitting South Florida and East Texas, uprooting millions of people. He answered questions from Chapter 16 about the way natural disasters exacerbate cultural divides but reveal everyday heroism. Holsinger will appear at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 14-16.

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Women in a World Designed for Men

A WWI librarian and a Naval Academy plebe confront injustice

In her second novel, The War Librarian, Nashville-based writer Addison Armstrong looks at contemporary cultural conflicts by taking a detailed dive into two moments in history. Armstrong will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 9.

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Seventy-Six Pounds of Wet Hair and Poor Decisions

Rick Bragg’s canine love story about the worst dog in the world

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Rick Bragg’s The Speckled Beauty is about finding the heart to love the most wayward and aggravating dog imaginable, who also turns out to be smart, tenacious, loyal, fearless, full of life, and just what the doctor ordered for a man who is learning new lessons about losing and letting go. Bragg will appear at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on October 14-16.

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Sitting in the Memories

Kendra Allen’s unconventional memoir reckons with trauma and personhood 

The stories in Kendra Allen’s memoir Fruit Punch are delivered in a lyrical mix of poetry and prose that can make you forget the story she’s telling is her own. Allen will appear at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on October 14-16.

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