A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

“Forsythia in February”

Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, a Nashville native, is the author of Ghost Gear and editor of Apocalypse Now: Poems & Prose from the End of Days. He’s the acquisitions editor for Upper Rubber Boot Books and the founder and editor of PoemoftheWeek.com and the Floodgate Poetry Series.

Paths of Resistance

Multimedia artist Jessica Ingram, who grew up in Nashville, commemorates acts of resistance to segregation and white supremacist terror in Road Through Midnight. The book includes her photographs of sites scarred by racial violence, as well as interviews with victims’ families and journalists who covered the crimes.

Disappointed Idealist

In the preface to Child of Light, his biography of novelist Robert Stone, Madison Smartt Bell describes Stone as a man who “confronted the world with the bright, acidic irony of an extraordinarily perceptive, bitterly disappointed idealist.” It’s a vivid and precise summary of the complex artist who emerges in this comprehensive book. 

Disappointed Idealist

Maybe Nothing, Maybe Wolves

“Someone is stealing Tennessee’s boys. Report suspicious behavior.” Ominous messages on local billboards set the scene in Court Stevens’ latest young adult mystery, The June Boys. 

Light in Their Darkest Hour

In The Splendid and the Vile, bestselling author Erik Larson explains how Winston Churchill inspired the British people to keep fighting through the dark days when Britain stood alone against the Nazis. 

Down From the Mountain

In Beyond the Sunset: The Melungeon Outdoor Drama, 1969-1976, Wayne Winkler explores how Tennessee’s poorest county turned to an unlikely source for economic revival: an outdoor drama about the region’s Melungeon heritage. The play ran for just five seasons but changed the county’s view of its mixed-race neighbors forever.

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