Chapter 16 - Part 73

Brushing the Divine

For novelist Amy Greene, a haunted town hidden on the Cumberland Plateau is the perfect place to write

By Amy Greene | October 28, 2022

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: The Celts believed heaven and earth are three feet apart but even shorter in these thin places. Are such locations where we’re able to brush up against the divine? Sometimes writing feels to me like a brush with the divine. Maybe that’s why places like Rugby call out to those of us who write, putting stories into our heads and almost demanding that we set them down on paper.

Scared Yet?

Vanderbilt historian Michael Bess explores four ways humanity might destroy itself

By Michael Ray Taylor | October 27, 2022

How does the world end? Futurist and Vanderbilt history professor Michael Bess lays out four convincing scenarios in Planet in Peril: Humanity’s Four Greatest Challenges and How We Can Overcome Them. After making well-researched arguments for the existential dangers of global warming, nukes, pandemics, and uncontrolled artificial intelligence, Bess offers hopeful antidotes to our imminent mass destruction.

Of Blood and Darkness

Cormac McCarthy returns with The Passenger and Stella Maris

By Ed Tarkington | October 25, 2022

A cult hero for the first half of his career, Cormac McCarthy is now a literary institution. As he approaches 90, he delivers two companion novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris, which fuse dizzying intellectual exploration with his trademark gift for depicting outsiders drawn unwillingly into gripping intrigues with lethal consequences.

Flowers Blooming in a Blizzard

Understanding the work of poetry and place

By Jane Marcellus | October 24, 2022

Joy Harjo’s Catching the Light offers short vignettes on the meaning of language, poetry, and place, taking us to a realm between ordinary reality and artistic vision.

The Leiper’s Fork Way

Helping neighbors in need

By Wayne Christeson | October 21, 2022

We were a community then, and Tommy remembered.

History in the Making

Poet Alora Young makes a triumphant debut with Walking Gentry Home

By Erica Ciccarone | October 20, 2022

In Walking Gentry Home, poet Alora Young crafts a family history from the stories passed down through generations.

Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

By Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
Seal Press
304 pages
$30

“Within these pages, I found my abuela, my tías and my primas — laughing, crying, and nodding alongside me. This book is a gift of understanding, and loving one’s family, even when our families are complicated and painful. It’s a beautiful reminder of the power of storytelling and the profound connection of kinship.”

~ Paola Mendoza, author, organizer and filmmaker