In Reorganized Religion, journalist Bob Smietana examines the evolution of America’s Christian institutions.
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Power to Harm and to Heal
A veteran religion writer considers the changing church
Unfixable Beauty
Ross Gay incites revolutionary thinking through sharing joy, fruit, and poetry
In his latest book of essays, Inciting Joy, poet and professor Ross Gay explores 14 ways to find joy in difficult times like these (which is to say, always). Gay appears in conversation with Adam Ross at Nashville’s Parnassus Books on November 8.
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Where the Badness Lives
Rebecca Bernard explores dangerous territory in Our Sister Who Will Not Die
By carefully wielding dangerous points of view, Rebecca Bernard’s debut story collection, Our Sister Who Will Not Die, discovers a fascinating variety of ways to tell stories that push into risky terrain.
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Vibrating with the Possibility of What You Might Become
Kevin Wilson’s latest novel considers the transformative power of art
“We were responsible for one of the weirdest mysteries in American pop culture,” admits Frankie, the protagonist and narrator of Sewanee author Kevin Wilson’s latest novel, Now Is Not the Time to Panic. Wilson will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 7 and SoLit’s Club Lit Fundraiser in Chattanooga on November 17.
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Brushing the Divine
For novelist Amy Greene, a haunted town hidden on the Cumberland Plateau is the perfect place to write
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.
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Scared Yet?
Vanderbilt historian Michael Bess explores four ways humanity might destroy itself
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.
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