Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Michael Ray Taylor

A Wee Dram of Brilliance

Clay Risen conquers all things Scotch in Single Malt

With Single Malt: A Guide to the Whiskies of Scotland, New York Times whiskey critic and longtime Chapter 16 contributor Clay Risen has created an essential guide to Scotch for “almost everyone.”

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Ghosts of Nashville

John Prine talks about songwriting, Nashville, Paradise, and his new book, Beyond Words

John Prine’s first official songbook, Beyond Words, collects sixty of his influential songs. It also offers a treasure trove of family photographs, song manuscripts, and short commentaries that highlight the singer’s incisive wit.

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Us Just Killing Ourselves

Robert Gipe’s Weedeater portrays a coal town overrun with opioids

Robert Gipe’s new illustrated novel, Weedeater, brings back Dawn Jewell, the unforgettable protagonist of Trampoline, and adds a second narrator: the laconic title character, a lawn worker who watches the opioid crisis roll through coal country.

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Strange Signals

Woody Skinner’s A Thousand Distant Radios tunes into odd frequencies

In his debut story collection, A Thousand Distant Radios, Woody Skinner captures the absurdity of contemporary life with spare language and offbeat humor. Skinner will appear at Novel in Memphis on March 18.

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Welcome to the Machine

Characters come of age in the secret city of Oak Ridge in Janet Beard’s The Atomic City Girls

The Atomic City Girls by East Tennessee native Janet Beard is set within the top-secret “instant city” of Oak Ridge during World War II. Beard will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 13 and at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 14.

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Religion and Dogs and Woods

Clyde Edgerton talks with Chapter 16 about the Southern literary landscape

Two of Clyde Edgerton’s beloved early novels, Raney and The Floatplane Notebooks, have been reissued by the University of South Carolina Press in its Southern Revivals series. Edgerton will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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