Chapter 16 - Part 9

Eat! Drink! Be Merry!

Julia Reed, an expert on Southern food and traditions, celebrates life’s sybaritic pleasures

By Sarah Norris | May 9, 2013

May 9, 2013 Julia Reed’s new essay collection, But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria!, is a happy, happy book, intended to make readers laugh out loud and reminisce about family culinary traditions, to inspire them to labor in a kitchen, perhaps with a frothy cocktail in hand, and then to share the delicious rewards. Reed will read from and discuss But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria! at the Southern Food Writing Conference, held in Knoxville on May 16 and 17.

Semple Gifts

Maria Semple talks about writing sitcoms, saving frogs, and turning her bestselling novel into a film

By Sarah Norris | April 23, 2013

April 23, 2013 In Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple’s protagonist offers a scathing and hilarious criticism of Seattle and almost everyone she encounters there. Widely cited as one of the best books of 2012, the epistolary novel became a national bestseller. Semple will discuss Where’d You Go, Bernadette, released in paperback this month, during a Wine with the Author evening hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 30 at 6:30 p.m.

Short and Deep

Jessica Francis Kane’s newest story collection is full of wisdom, levity, and truth

By Sarah Norris | April 2, 2013

April 2, 2013 In a combination of stand-alone pieces and linked stories, Jessica Francis Kane presents an eclectic band of characters whose idiosyncrasies, concerns, and desires feel entirely true to life. She writes of loyal but alienated marriages, mothers physically present with but estranged from their children, and of neighbors whose literal proximity allows them to hear each other sneeze even as their emotional distance and judgment of one another make real connection far beyond reach. Kane will read from her new story collection, This Close, on April 11 at 6:30 p.m. at Parnassus Books in Nashville. She will appear with Jamie Quatro, who will discuss her own story collection, I Want to Show You More.

Matter of Heart

David Huddle, who currently holds the Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence in the Creative Arts at APSU, discusses his recent work with Chapter 16

By Sarah Norris | February 11, 2013

February 11, 2013 David Huddle, author of seven story collections, three novels, seven volumes of poetry, and a book of advice for writers, holds the 2012-13 Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence at Austin Peay State University. Now seventy-one, he recently answered questions from Chapter 16 about a lifetime spent writing “narratives” in a variety of forms, how teaching has improved his own work, and why Philip Roth will probably write another novel. On February 12 at 7:30 p.m., Huddle will read from his 2011 novel, Nothing Can Make Me Do This, in Room 303 of the Morgan University Center at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. The event is free and open to the public.

One For the Records

At age twenty-five, Nashville resident Victoria Schwab has published her second YA novel, The Archived

By Sarah Norris | January 30, 2013

January 30, 2013 At only twenty-five, Nashville author Victoria Schwab has experienced the kind of success most authors only dream about. Her debut novel, The Near Witch, was published when she was barely twenty-three. Two years later, her second YA novel, The Archived, has just hit shelves. This year will also see the arrival of Vicious, Schwab’s first novel for adults. And she’s already sold the sequel to The Archived. Schwab will celebrate with a book signing and launch party hosted by East Nashville’s Art & Invention Gallery on February 1 at 5 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Gender Bender

For T Cooper, becoming a man was “the most natural thing in the world”

By Sarah Norris | January 15, 2013

January 15, 2013 “I’m not quite one of those ‘born in the wrong body’ types you see on Oprah or The Learning Channel,” T Cooper writes. “I actually think I was born in the right body. It’s just a little different, and it doesn’t fit squarely into the gender binary.” Cooper will read from and discuss his new memoir, Real Man Adventures, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 17 at 6:30 p.m. On March 11, Cooper will also read at the University of Tennessee’s Hodges Library. Both events are free and open to the public.

Tender Headed (National Poetry Series)

By Olatunde Osinaike
Akashic Books
80 pages
17.95

“In Tender Headed, Olatunde Osinaike asks the question, what makes a man, and what makes a man like me? As he interrogates the inner and outer workings of masculinity in all its sharp and tender parts, and the way a Black man meets the world, his poems strut and duck and weave across their pages. These poems unpack the ingredients of being and make a meal of language.”

~ Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses