Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Three-Day Business Trip

A life-changing journey 

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: I arrived in Zagreb in the evening of Thursday, April 15, 1993 — the first step of a planned three-day business trip. I expected to return home to Bosnia as soon as it was done.

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Tracking a Killer

Journalist Kathryn Miles trails a 1996 cold case

In Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders, Kathryn Miles sets out to find who killed Julie Williams and Lollie Winans in Shenandoah National Park more than 25 years ago. In doing so, she discovers problems with the justice system and persistent misogyny in outdoor culture.  

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Let’s Go, Girls

Her Country makes the case for a more inclusive country music industry

In Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be, Marissa R. Moss gets to the deep struggles women in country music have faced and argues for a more inclusive industry. Moss will discuss Her Country at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 10 and at the Tennessee State Museum on June 9.

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Stories More Like Memories

A family’s storytelling tradition hides and reveals a history of domestic abuse

The Crocodile Bride, the debut novel by Ashleigh Bell Pedersen, is a gripping family saga about the power of storytelling — especially its ability to warm and soften the edges of cold, harsh reality. Pedersen creates a world at once tragic and beautiful, violent and magical, desperately impoverished yet rich in meaning.

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The Man as a Writer

Gordon Van Ness discusses the complex legacy of poet James Dickey

In James Dickey: A Literary Life, Gordon Van Ness, a long-time scholar of the Vanderbilt-educated poet and novelist, has written a comprehensive biography of a complex man and his place in American letters.

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