Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

“Poem for a Chattanooga Night Club”

Book Excerpt: Him or Her or Whatever

Tyler Friend was grown — and is still growing — in Tennessee and received their MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Friend is the author of a poetry chapbook, BUNKER, and Him or Her or Whatever is their first full-length collection.

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My Favorite Chapter

A writer reflects on her long relationship with Chapter 16

It’s been more than 10 years since I took those tentative and unwitting steps toward a part-time career as a “professional writer,” a label I never would have dared apply to myself until Margaret Renkl gave me permission.

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Finding Her Place in the Sun

Jamie Sumner brings readers a 12-year-old girl who finds her courage

Jamie Sumner’s middle-grade novel The Summer of June tells the story of one 12-year-old’s struggle to manage her anxiety. Sumner will sign the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 4.  

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A Southern Ramble

Reporter Dan Chapman retraces John Muir’s 1867 trek through the South

John Muir’s A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf chronicles the famed conservationist’s trek through the South in 1867. In A Road Running Southward, Dan Chapman, a Georgia-based environmental reporter, follows Muir’s path on foot and by Subaru, observing nature at risk from mountain forests to coastal estuaries. 

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The Worthless Servant

Novelist Ann Patchett takes a ride with Charlie Strobel, Nashville advocate for the homeless

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Nashville’s Room in the Inn serves individuals experiencing homelessness by providing a winter shelter program, recuperative care, education and workforce development, and solutions for permanent housing. In the summer of 2012, novelist Ann Patchett made the rounds with Room in the Inn’s founder, Father Charles Strobel, and wrote an essay about the experience, which appears in Not Less Than Everything: Catholic Writers on Heroes of Conscience, From Joan of Arc to Oscar Romero, edited by Catherine Wolff.

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“To See Small Fish in High Branches”

Book Excerpt: Small Fish in High Branches

Nashvillian Annette Sisson’s first book of poetry, Small Fish in High Branches, was released this month by Glass Lyre Press. Her poems have appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Nashville Review, and One. Her chapbook, A Casting Off, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019

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