Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

A Struggle Against Dull

January 21, 2016 Rick Bragg will kick off the Southern Lit Alliance’s Distinguished Lectures series tonight with a reading at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center in Chattanooga. In this podcast, Bragg talks with Chapter 16 about his biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, why Southern storytellers are drawn to the Gothic, and why, for a writer, “everything is a struggle against dull.”

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Book Excerpt: Rick Bragg’s My Southern Journey

“My Brother’s Garden”

October 7, 2015 “I listen for the past, but I cannot hear it. The juke joints fall silent, cotton mills wind down to a final, solitary thread, and a last buck dancer shuffles off into the mountain mist. Then I see my brother Mark in his garden, and know that not everything must fade away.” Rick Bragg will discuss My Southern Journey on October 10, 2015, at noon in Conference Room 1 of the Nashville Public Library. The event, part of the Southern Festival of Books, is free and open to the public.

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Pay Dirt

With Gold Digger, spoken-word artist Minton Sparks explodes into song

December 4, 2014 “In my family, the only lucrative line of work is gold-diggin’,” Nashville-based spoken-word artist Minton Sparks announces in her fifth album, Gold Digger. Sparks will perform at The Basement in Nashville on December 5, 2014, at 7 p.m.

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Time Savers

Jim McCann and Janet Lee save the day—and the night—with their big-buzz graphic novel

December 9, 2010 Hear that buzzing sound? No, it’s not Rudolph’s nose on the fritz. It’s what’s happening as an author and artist with Nashville connections give Santa a run for his sleigh with Return of the Dapper Men, one of the season’s hit holiday gifts. Jim McCann and Janet Lee will sign copies of their new graphic novel at Art & Invention Gallery in Nashville on December 9 at 5:30 p.m.

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